


Out of the Deep - Dean's Drabbles

by riseofthefallenone



Series: Out of the Deep [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Destiel - Freeform, Drabbles, M/M, Mermaids, Mermen, Present Tense, Swearing, Work In Progress, merfolk, out of the deep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2017-11-26 17:56:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 56
Words: 160,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riseofthefallenone/pseuds/riseofthefallenone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are drabbles done for scenes from Dean's POV for my story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/548878/chapters/977676">Out of the Deep</a>.</p><p>This does not cover <em>all</em> chapters. But they are now in order. I will specify at the top of each "chapter" (in the notes) where in the OotD time line the drabble belongs. These are just some scenes readers had expressed interest in hearing from Dean's POV (with bonus scenes that we don't get in OotD because that's all from Castiel's POV).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A "Prologue"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place at the end of Chapter 1.**

He’s elbow deep in the spare engine for a routine check, humming his way through the chorus of Styx’s ‘Renegade’, when he hears the first excited voices and thudding footstep coming from the floor above. Dean doesn’t bother going to check. If it’s important, someone – Bobby, most likely – will come tell him.

In this case, it’s Sam. Sam who’s supposed to be, if Dean’s watch is any kind of correct, diving with Jess on the reef at the moment. He should have jumped ship more than fifteen minutes ago and they’re not supposed to be back for almost another hour. All for something like collecting reef samples and other science-y bullshit that Dean could understand if he felt any inclination to actually pay attention when either Sam or Jess started gabbing about the wonderful life under the sea. 

“Dean! DEAN!”

He’d be in more of a rush extracting himself from the inner workings of the engine if that wasn’t Sam’s I’m-about-to-pee-my-pants-like-an-excited-four-year-old voice. Dean nearly cracks his head all the same when the door slams open, catching the edge of his tool box and sending it and the contents scattering across the floor. 

There’s a shower of water all down his back and Dean is actually, physically, dragged out from being bent through the exhaust hatch and wrapped in the wettest hug he’s ever had the displeasure of experiencing. Sam and his freak sasquatch strength even lifts him off the floor and spins like they’re in the goddamn Sound of Music movie.

“Sammy!” He grunts, trying to wiggle out of the grip. “Calm your tits and put me the hell down!”

He should be thankful that Sam complied with even just one of those and that he only staggers a little bit when his feet touch the floor again.

“Dean! We found one! We actually _found_ one!” Sam’s mammoth hands fall on his shoulders and Dean thinks the following shaking might actually have knocked loose some of his fillings.

He pries Sam’s fingers from his shoulders and keeps a firm hold on his wrists to keep him from trying anything else. “Found _what,_ Sammy? I thought you guys were just going to get some coral samples or something?”

Sam’s grin is almost blinding. Dean hasn’t seen him this happy since Jess said ‘yes’ to The Question. He pulls his hands from Dean’s hold and shoves his fingers in his hair, turning sharply and starting to pace. Dean gets sprayed with more water from the swing of his hair and he splutters, wiping it from his face.

“When Lilith told us that these reefs actually had physical recordings – she even showed us the pictures – I never thought we’d actually – and we’ve only been here for a few weeks – and there was one right there on the reef, Dean! Right there and I got it and oh my GOD. They actually exist, Dean. They. Exist.”

Dean reaches out and grabs Sam by the collar of his wetsuit, dragging him to a stop before he slips on a wrench and kills himself. “Take a deep breath, calm down, and tell me what you found.”

Sam stops. That’s about the only thing he really carries through on. But he’s trembling, like it’s too hard to hold still. When he looks at Dean with wide eyes, Dean knows he’s not really looking at him. His voice is too quiet and he has to lean in closer to get all the words. “I thought the pictures were doctored, y’know, fake? But no, holy shit, no. Dean, I caught a…” He stops and licks his lips. “I caught a mermaid. I real live, half-man, half-fish, _mermaid_.”

It’s almost painful with how hard he has to fight to keep the skepticism off of his face and out of his voice. He forces a smile. “That’s awesome, Sammy.” He has _got_ to be pulling Dean’s leg. A mermaid? For serious? No, that’s too farfetched even for Lilith. And she’s a fucking psycho.

Sam babbles a little more about missing links and new discoveries and science journals and God knows what else. There’s hand flapping, some more pacing, and water spraying before he takes off again. Now it’s something about getting Pamela to come check out the mermaid and make sure the tranquilizers aren’t killing it or whatever.

Dean wipes his hands on the towel tucked in the back of his belt. It’s cool that Sam’s so excited, but he thinks he might be losing his shit over nothing. No way they actually found a _mermaid_. Mermaids don’t really exist. They’re just legends made up by drunk sailors over some sea-cows or something. That skeleton they have at that museum in Boston is totally a fake. Everyone knows that.

But Sam was really excited, beyond that even. And Sam isn’t one to make a big mistake between knowing and not knowing the difference between a mermaid and a… a.. a _not_ -mermaid. Either way, Dean won’t believe they’ve got one until he sees it with his own eyes. That’s been his life’s philosophy and he’s not likely to change that anytime soon.

And if he’s deliberating on following Sam’s wet foot prints – Dean’s going to chew him out later for running around the engine rooms without shoes on – then it’s just because he’s maybe a little curious to see what they really did get. It’s not that he thinks it could be an honest to God _mermaid_. That would be ridiculous. But it’s gotta be something cool, right?

Dean resolves to check it out later. Right now he’s got an engine that needs a tune up and he doesn’t have the time or the energy or the desire to get caught up in all the shit that’s going to be happening on the research floor. He’ll go up and see Sam and Jess and their ‘mermaid’ when things are more calmed down.

But there’s a dark something twisting tight in his gut. It feels almost like… anticipation? He can’t really put a word to it. Though it’s a lot like that anxious feeling he got when he was hunting down Sammy – the day before he found him in that alley. Whatever it is, it’s starting to make his skin itch.

There’s a storm brewing on the horizon.

And it has nothing to do with the weather.


	2. Alien Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 2.**

His stomach is grumbling and that can mean only one thing. It’s lunch time. Hell yes, it’s frikken _lunch time_. Which just so happens to be Dean’s second favourite time of day (after breakfast and before supper). And according to Bobby, today’s lunch is hot open faced roast beef sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy (and some kind of vegetable but who really cares about that).

It’s no burger, but it’ll do just fine.

Dean stows his toolbox in the work room under the stairs and stops on the bunk-level to use the bathroom and wash his hands. Of course it’s while he’s on the can that he hears excited voices and pounding feet. Again. Just like yesterday. Everything gets quiet again a few moments later and Dean doesn’t really hear anything until he’s all finished, washed up, and back in the hall.

There’s something in the air. A sound he doesn’t recognize.

Dean stops on the stairs, head cocked to the side. He thinks it sounds a little like that whale song crap that Sam and Jess sometimes listen to. But not really, not completely. There’s... words, but they aren’t any kind of words Dean’s ever heard before. And there’s no instruments. Just a voice.

It sounds otherworldly.

Sweet Jesus, please tell him that Lilith isn’t starting to pump weird foreign music through the whole boat.

Goosebumps are breaking out over his skin and little needle-sharp shivers race down his spine. Dean finds himself on the science floor before he even realizes he’s moved. He tries to squeeze in next to what has to be every single person on board. It’s like sardines in a can with how they’re all jam packed in the hall.

No one is talking.

Dean tries to get the attention of someone he’s pretty sure might be another science geek. “Hey, wha-” He gets shushed by no less than seven people before he even gets to the third syllable.

So he stands there. He listens with everyone else. Some people have their heads tilted back, hands clasped together against their chest. Others are staring open mouthed at the door that everyone seems to be grouped around. And more than just a few of them are actually crying.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Someone whispers and Dean feels a little miffed that _they_ aren’t shushed immediately.

But he has to agree. The song is beautiful. Beautiful and sad. It sounds lonely, and every mournful rise and fall makes his heart hurt. His hands fist at his sides and he closes his eyes to listen to it. A heavy weight settles in his gut and a lump makes itself right at home in his throat. The song is heartbreaking and Dean finds himself fighting back tears.

The song is starting to get rough, like whoever is singing it is running out of steam. The notes are warbling, and the voice is low, scraping over the tones. It’s just before the song ends that Dean remembers what Sam said yesterday.

He had claimed they caught a mermaid.

Dean’s next breath catches in his throat just as the voice breaks, croaking around the last note. Holy fucking Christ on a cracker is that a _mermaid_ singing? Judging by the voice, if it is, it’s probably a _merman_. But still. Holy shit. No wonder it doesn’t sound like anything Dean’s ever really heard before.

When the last note fades, everyone is quiet for a few moments. And then they all start talking at once. Dean winces at the clamour of voices and he slips back out into the stairwell to escape them. His head is still reeling from the realization and he’ll be damned if he’s going to go to lunch without _seeing_ the source of that song first.

Now he’s curious enough to actually _want_ see what had Sam's panties in a bunch yesterday.

Everyone suddnely cut off at roughly the same time and Dean peeks back in to find out what the hell is going on. He nearly gets beaned in the face with the door for that as people start coming out. He has to squeeze to one side, wedging himself behind the door or risk getting pushed up or down the stairs. He’s pretty sure he can hear Sam and Jess and that creepy bastard, Alistair, telling everyone to get the heck out.

The flow splits, some people going top side but most going down below to the bunk level. When it thins out, Dean shoulders his way back through the crowd and he sticks close to the wall as he edges his way closer to what is – if they really do have a mermaid – could potentially be dubbed ‘the most interesting room on the boat’.

Sam is standing in the doorway, glaring sternly at everyone as they pass. He breaks into a wide grin when he sees Dean.

“Finally came to see him, huh?”

Dean tries to look as casual as possible while subtly staring at the big ass tank taking up the majority of the room. This requires leaning against the door frame, slouching his shoulders, and sticking a hand in his pocket. It’s his standard I’m-not-that-interested-but-I’m-interested-enough position.

The door is open just enough to hide half the tank and from what he can see, the damn thing is empty. He does his best to keep the disappointment off his face and looks up at Sam.

“So what the hell was that, huh?” He gestures vaguely, fixing a grin on his face. “You guys trying out for some new age hippie band or something?”

Sam smiles. He more than smiles. He lights the fuck up like he’s nine years old again and they’re setting off fireworks in Bobby’s scrap yard. It kind of knocks Dean for a loop and he only half listens to Sam as he gushes about this mermaid that Dean still hasn’t actually seen. He interjects a few comments and nods along.

“Well, I gotta say I’m happy that wasn’t Alistair or Gordon. I’d have to rearrange my whole life’s view if one of those asshats managed to do anything with that level of emotion.” Dean flaps his hand at the pair standing with their heads together on the other side of the room. “Speaking of, I saw Alistair last night and his no –”

There’s movement in the tank and every mental and physical process comes to a screeching halt. His train of thought doesn’t just derail. It sprouts rocket wings and takes off up and out and goodbye, so long, thanks for all the fish, because Jesus Mary Mother of God in Heaven that is a fucking _mermaid_. And the mermaid has either never seen humans before, or he’s actually checking Dean out, but who the fuck cares because holy fuck, holy FUCK. They’re real. Mermaids are fucking _real_.

Someone call Disney because they were wrong beyond all reason with Ariel and her finny friends. Triton was badass with his muscles and his beard and his giant sea-fork. But they’ve got _nothing_ on the creature staring back at Dean from the other side of the glass. Scales and fins and holy shit he’s got webbing between his fingers and fins instead of ears and they’re twitching and spreading and they’ve got scales that spread out onto his cheeks and there are fucking _gills_ on his fucking neck and his eyes –

Dean thinks his heart might have actually stopped because suddenly it’s really fucking hard to breathe. The mermaid is looking at him. He’s not just staring at his clothes or checking out his face, he’s actually looking _at him_. All wide blue eyes and maybe it’s just his ego speaking, but Dean swears that’s awe mixed in with all that distrust and pursed lips and he should really blink or look away or something.

All he really manages to do is blink a few times and he’s not sure if that’s because he needed to or because Sam’s gargantuan frame is leaning in close. “Isn’t he amazing? And he’s really smart too. Say hello, wave, do something other than stare like an idiot.”

He thinks that a smile might be trying to edge its way onto his face, but he’s not really sure about anything his body is doing. That’s a mermaid and he’s got some badass fins on his back and those weird wavy fans like that pink-thing from the reef scene in Finding Nemo going down the sides of his tail. There are even swirling blue dots all over his scales.

Every painting, drawing, or rendition Dean has ever seen of a mermaid does not do them any form of justice. Not if all the others are anywhere near as gorgeous as this guy. Because Dean is one hundred percent sure he’s never seen anything as beautiful as the mermaid waving back at him when he twists his wrist in probably the weakest wave he’s ever given.

He’s got an attractive enough face, like Dean would probably give him a once over and maybe even hit on him if he passed a human version on the street. But everything mixed together is just… fuck. It’s like that one time Bobby took him and Sam to the Zoo when he was eleven and he’d stared at the tiger in it's cage and thought _that_ was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. Dean knows how to appreciate a beauty in all its forms and that is most definitely one of them right there.

Sam turns around to wave too and the mermaid – well, merman – finally looks away. It’s like whatever spell was in place is broken and even though Dean’s been breathing this whole time, his next breath is shaky and deep like it’s the first real one he’s taken in several minutes.

He’s a little more than surprised when the merman actually _frowns_ and glares at Sam before he pushes away from the wall. Sam’s shoulders slump and Dean laughs, shoving at him. “Looks like he doesn’t like you much.”

“He figured out I’m the one who tranq’d him on the reef, so yeah, he’s not all that happy with me right now.” Sam shoves back before brightening again. “And you know how he figured it out, Dean? I showed him that clothes aren’t a part of our actual bodies and I guess he understood that that means I could have been wearing the wetsuit. I don’t doubt that he must have some kind of language and if we can get him to –”

It’s muffled by the water, but the shout of surprise is enough to make Dean look over and Sam spins around. Alistair and Gordon are standing on the platform set up on the far side of the tank and they’ve got one of those hoop-sticks Dean has seen dog catchers use to catch dogs around the neck to keep them from biting them. They’re dragging the merman by his wrist up to the bars and Dean is struck dumb just watching them pull his arm up and out.

The merman is struggling hard against the hold they’ve got on his arm. Dean’s neck twinges sympathetically at the way his head is bent against the bars. His tail is whipping all over the place and Dean can _hear_ the gasping and he can _see_ the way the merman’s gills are flapping in the air.

Alistair leaves Gordon to hold the merman’s arm while he starts patting at his pockets. “Gordon, hold his arm _still_.”

“I _am_ holding it! Just draw the goddamn blood already.”

“He’s squirming too much, I won’t get the vein –”

Dean doesn’t hesitate to follow Sam across the room. They join up with Jess and Meg where they’re standing at the corner of the tank. “What the hell are you two doing?!” Sam shouts at them before turning to Jess. “Jess, why didn’t you stop them!”

She shakes her head and Dean can’t tell if she’s angry or worried. It’s a weird mixture of both that she’s scarily good at pulling off. “I told them this wasn’t the right way, that he would probably let us if we just asked him but they wouldn’t listen, Sam –”

Alistair laughs and it's a low, nasally sound. “Oh, listen to you two. ‘Ask him’? He’s an _animal_. You can’t ask an animal any–”

Dean’s nerves ratchet up another few notches. The merman keeps gasping and he’s making little crying noises that are ripping Dean's patience for Alistair and Gordon and all this bullshit science crap to shreds. He's smart enough to figure out Sam caught him, he waves, he’s in _pain_.

Dean snaps. “Alistair, let him go! He can’t fuckin’ _breathe_!”

“You’re not even supposed to be in here, Dean. Meg, get him out of here.”

Meg grabs his elbow but Dean barely notices her touch because everything narrows down to the red splattered on Gordon’s lab coat. The cord of that hoop-stick must be shredding the merman’s wrist because it’s bleeding all over the place. “You’re making him _bleed_ , you asshole!” He brushes Meg off and grabs Sam’s arm, shaking it slightly. “Sammy, make ‘em stop!”

“Leave it alone, Dean-o, this is how things go.” Meg must grab the back of his shirt, because he’s suddenly jerked back a step. “Come on –”

 “I’m not leaving when you guys are fuckin’ _attacking_ him!” Dean wrenches out of her hold again and starts forward, brushing past Jess and Sam. He tries grabbing at Gordon to get him to let the merman go.

Alistair gets in his way, jumping down off the platform to get in his face. He’s uglier than usual, his nose and cheeks bruised and swollen. The white strip over his nose does nothing for his complexion and his smarmy, stringy voice is even more annoying when it sounds like he’s talking with his nose plugged up (which it obviously is because it’s clearly broken and Dean is mentally high-fiving whoever did it).

“I’m sorry, did you completely miss that he _broke_ my goddamn _nose_?”

Correction, Dean is mentally high-fiving the merman. And if he gets the chance, if these two fuckwads haven’t completely scarred him from all forms of human contact, he’ll high-five him physically too. In fact, he’ll give him a tribute right now for being exceptionally awesome.

Dean draws his arm back and slams his fist into Alistair’s mouth before anyone really has a chance to stop him. Sam probably saw it coming, but he never stepped up so it’s basically the best kind of permission he can give. Alistair stumbles back, his lip split and it’s a pity Dean didn’t break any of his teeth. His knuckles sting and he probably cut them with that punch, but he doesn’t really care.

Alistair hits the platform and falls right against Gordon, knocking him off his feet and sending them both crashing down on their asses.

“Now you’ve got a mouth to match your nose you son-of-a-bitch!” Dean spits. He’d probably jump on them and keep them down while the merman ducks away from the bars and out into the middle of the tank, but Sam wraps his arms around Dean’s chest and damn near lifts him off the ground to keep him from advancing.

Dean starts yelling. He’s not exactly sure what’s passing his lips, but it’s mostly repeated insults at Alistair and Gordon for being douchnozzles and deserving whatever shit the merman gives them. He struggles against Sam and his mammoth hold. Seriously, he’s supposed to be the _little_ brother. Why the hell is he so much bigger? And he’s a _science geek_. Why does he feel like six and a half feet of fucking _rock_?

This is why Dean has complexes.

Gordon untangles himself from Alistair and starts rolling up his sleeves as he gets to his feet. It’s the universal sign for 'shit is about to go down' and Dean will be damned before he lets Gordon get a single hit in on him because his sasquatch brother didn’t want him to fight.

Dean starts struggling harder, twisting in Sam’s hold. “Let me go, Sammy. If these fuckwads want a fight, I’ll give them a goddamn fight. You can’t just go fucking _hurting_ people without finding out if they’re _people_ in the first place!”

Jess moves between them, one hand on Dean’s chest and one on Gordon’s to keep them apart. “Guys, please. We don’t need to bring fists into this anymore than they already –” She doesn’t get to finish and Dean swears he sees red when Gordon shoves her aside and Jess stumbles to her knees.

If he’s seeing red, then Sam must be in a full on blackout because he all but throws Dean aside. Gordon hits the floor seconds after Sam’s fist smashes into his cheek. Rage is making everything seem likes it’s pulsing in time with his heart and Dean stands over Alistair and Gordon while Sam and Meg help Jess up.

He turns enough to point toward the door. He barely manages to keep his voice under control and it’s dripping with venom and deadly promises. “Get the fuck out. Both of you. Now.”

Alistair looks like he’s going to object, but all he manages is a weird gurgle. Meg is suddenly there at Alistair’s side and pulling him to his feet. She hooks his arm over her shoulders and practically drags him from the room. Gordon is slower to follow, and the look he’s sending Dean is the kind he learned to be very, very wary of back in prison.

It means he’s going to have to watch his back.

Dean makes note of it and turns away. “Jess, you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She nods as Sam helps her to her feet.

Good. If Jess had been hurt that would have meant Dean would have had to make Gordon pay. Not that he’d have minded, but he’s probably going to get in enough shit with Lilith over punching out her favourite meat puppets. Right now there’s somebody else that needs his attention.

Dean doesn’t miss how the merman flinches when he steps up onto the platform. He hesitates only slightly when the merman flares the fins on his back and on the sides of his head. It makes him look more threatening and those fans along his tail are rippling and _goddamn_ he looks like he could rip Dean’s face off if he so much as took another step closer to the tank.

Of course Dean plans on doing much, much more than that. He leans over the wall and shoves his arms through the bars right up to his shoulders. If the merman wants to come over and chew one of his arms off, then so be it. This is the only way he knows how to prove that he can be trusted. If this merman is as smart as Sam says he is then he’ll understand that Dean wants to help, that he’s trusting this otherworldly creature not to hurt him.

May Spock and Kirk on the Enterprise protect him.

Dean wiggles his fingers in the universal gesture for ‘come the fuck over’. The merman just stares at him while cradling his wrist to his chest. Dean sighs softly and points at his own wrist. He wraps his fingers around it and pantomimes removing them, hoping he’ll understand.

The merman doesn’t move.

He growls in frustration and steps away from the tank, shaking the water from his arms. Sam and Jess are on the platform too now, and it’s really kind of squished now because it’s barely big enough for two and Dean and Sam happen to be bigger than your average bears.

“He’s probably traumatized now.” Jess says sadly. “I doubt we’ll get him to trust us any time soon.”

“We can’t let him stay like that.” Dean turns to her and holds out his hand. “Give me the key.” At the stern look he rolls his eyes and adds. “Please.”

Sam immediately shakes his head, his ridiculous hair flopping all over the place. “No way, Dean. He broke Alistair’s nose. It’s too dangerous for us to open the cage.”

Jess’s face goes all soft and understanding. Clearly she and Sam are terrible influences on each other. She touches Dean’s hand and he puts up with it for a few moments before stepping away because Sam is starting to get into his this-is-the-stupidest-thing-you’ve-ever-thought-of rant.

Dean cuts him off with a single look. “I’m not letting him sit in there while he's bleeding from the wrist, Sam. I’m just going to help him out.”

“We can’t open the cage –”

Dean raises his voice. “He needs our help and I’m going to help him whether you say I can or can’t.”

Sam starts making the interesting faces he does. The ones that Dean and Jess fondly refer to as ‘bitch-faces’. He turns to Jess and makes one of those help-me-with-him gestures at Dean. She shakes her head and pulls the key out of his pocket and hands it over. Now Sam starts into the yelling, both at Dean and at Jess for giving him the key.

Dean ignores it completely when Jess starts shouting back. He turns back to the tank and fumbles with the damn lock until he hears that satisfying click. The merman actually looks surprised when Dean grips the bars and flips them open. He feels tugging on the back of his flannel and it’s like he’s back in time and Sam’s six years old and trying to stop Dean from ding-dong-ditching Old Man Whitmore’s supposedly haunted house.

He shrugs out of the flannel and Sam makes a disgruntled noise like he wasn’t expecting that. Dean pulls his t-shirt over his head and tosses that aside. He kicks off his work books next and stoops to pull off his socks because those are just an annoying bitch when they get wet.

“Dean, you’re being fucking stupid. He could drown you.” Sam sounds more worried than he does angry.

“Then get the scuba tanks.”

The moment he grabs the lip of the tank and pulls himself up to hook his leg over it, the merman uncurls and with just one flick of his tail, he’s skidding back across the floor to the far wall. Dean goes as slow as he can with rolling over the edge of the wall, but he still makes a hell of a splash. He treads water, kicking in his jeans and they’re already clinging uncomfortably.

“Dean, you should wait until we –”

“If you wanna get the tanks, then go and get the tanks, Sammy. I’m not getting out until that thing’s offa him and I’m not gonna swim over there either.”

“So what, you’re going to wait for him?”

“Of _course_ I’m gonna wait for him to come to me. What? You think I’m stupid. Christ, gimme some fuckin’ credit.” Dean glares at him over the edge of the glass. Sam and Jess are standing right up close to the wall now.

Dean takes a deep breath and ducks underwater. He looks down and across the tank at the merman. The salt water burns his eyes a bit, but it’s got nothing on the sting of chlorine. His heart is pounding and he stills and stares wide-eyed when the merman’s fins flare again. The need for air burns at his lungs and he goes up for another big breath before ducking down again.

He goes up to breathe again, and again, and again. The minutes drag on and no matter how many times he gestures for the merman to come over, he never does. At least he knows the merman understands him, because he actually shakes his head and hugs his hand tighter. He can hear the pinging scrape of the stick every time it hits the floor whenever the merman moves.

Dean  goes up for another breath and Sam touches his hand. “Dean, it’s not working. You should get out before you catch a cold or something.”

He glances over his shoulder to give him the stink-eye. “Dude, I’m not a wilting flower. This is nothing worse than an unheated swimming pool. I can handle it.”

Jess’s gasp cuts Sam off. “Dean-!”

He sucks in a quick breath and tilts his face into the water. His heart stutter-stops for a moment, fluttering wildly in his throat because Jesus shit he’s fucking _fast._ The merman is sliding through the water like it’s nothing, the stick scraping on the ground. He curls to a stop way less than half the tank away.

Dean lifts his head up and takes several deep breaths before taking his biggest yet. He barely hears Sam’s objection before he uses his grip on the wall to push himself down and lets go. He starts paddling and doing weird, choppy kicks until he reaches the bottom. Dean’s not going to last long down here and Sam was so wrong earlier because _this_ is the stupidest thing he could possibly be doing right now.

The merman is watching the bubbles that keep running out of Dean’s nose every time he exhales a little bit. He tilts his head, trying to catch those alien eyes. They look so human, but they’re from worlds away and when they meet his, Dean’s heart goes into triple time. He raises his eyebrows, begging silently for the merman to listen to reason (and not kill him).

His lungs burn and he might lose a bit more air than he means to when the merman does a neat little circle that brings him just that little bit closer. The ripple of fins and scales and muscles and fuck him if this isn’t the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen. Not that he would ever admit that out loud.

Dean can feel his face growing hot under the pressure of holding his breath. Most of his air is lost when the merman actually reaches out and _touches_ him. His hand is cold when it closes over his shoulder and the merman squeezes, just once.

Oh God, oh God, oh sweet jumping jellybean Jesus, he’s going to die. The mermaid is going to hold him down here until he drowns and he is going to _die_. He can hear Sam shouting and he’s losing air way too fast because he’s way too fucking scared to even think proper.

The merman meets his eyes again before he twitches the end of his tail once. Just once, and they’re practically rocketing to the surface. He drags Dean after him and glory on high, air has never tasted so sweet. Dean scrabbles at the wall and breathes deep. It actually _hurts_ his lungs and his head is swimming slightly but who the fuck cares because the merman is right there and he's watching him and Dean is watching right back.

He watches while the merman breaks the water too. It’s like he’s testing to see how high he can go up. Eventually, he rises up enough until his chin is being licked by the ripples Dean keeps making while treading water. He’s keeping his gills underwater and ducks every so often to get his lips under to breathe.

Yeah, Sam was right. For once. The merman really is fucking amazing. Dean doesn’t really give a shit that he’s grinning like an idiot. “So you ready for me to take that thing offa you?”

The merman tilts his head to one side and his eyebrows furrow in what could possibly be the cutest confused expression Dean has ever seen. That includes Sam’s what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about face when Dean tried coaching him on the wonderful world of Star Trek when Sam was eight. For being what looks like a full grown man, that’s pretty fucking impressive.

It’s more than obvious that the merman doesn’t understand what the hell Dean is talking about. So now it’s time to try something new. He points at himself. “Dean.” He gestures over his shoulder at his brother. “Sam.” And over the other shoulder. “Jess.” And then back to himself and taps his chest once. “Dean.”

He mentally high-fives himself because the merman actually fucking _nods_. He understands and that’s awesome. Dean’s grinning again and he couldn’t care less about it because he’s probably making some kind of insane scientific breakthrough. Not Sam, not Jess, but _him_. Jesus Christ, if this is what it feels like to be a smarty-pants then he is in the entirely wrong career.

Dean points at the merman and quirks his eyebrow. It earns him a frown and he feels his stomach drop a bit because shit, did he just blow this somehow? The merman dips his lips back underwater for a few moments before he looks up again.

He tries really hard not to flinch when the merman reaches out with his good hand - because seriously, his nails are wicked sharp looking - and pokes him in the chest. “Dean.”

Sweet unholy shit sticks.

That’s just not fucking fair. Not even slightly. Not even a little bit. The merman’s voice is deeper than his own and if he had to classify it as anything, it would be labelled ‘sex’. Mother of God, it’s sexy as hell and that is exactly where Dean is going because that voice is sending all sorts of wrong vibes slip-sliding down his spine. And then the mermaid speaks _again_.

He mimics Dean’s pointing. “Sam. Jess.”

Goddamn, his _teeth_. It was just a few flashes but _shit_. They’re not that different from his own in what looks like numbering and placement, only instead of being flat they're in fucking _points._ Like fangs. Or whatever the fuck you want to call them. They’re badass as all hell.

Christ, Dean can practically _hear_ how hard they’re smiling behind him and he’s pretty sure he’s got the same damn look mirrored on his own face.

The merman turns his hand on himself. “Castiel.”

He’s never heard a name like that and it actually sounds pretty damn cool. Dean repeats the name and it sounds foreign on his tongue and he really wouldn’t have it any other way. “Castiel.” The merman nods and Dean wants to laugh he’s so frikken happy. “Hi Cas.”

“Hi Cas?” Castiel tilts his head again and he looks so confused, like he has no idea what Dean just said.

Sam smacks Dean on the top of his head, making him bob slightly in the water. “He obviously doesn’t speak English, idiot.”

Dean dips his head and glares over his shoulder. “I know that. I was just being _polite_. Jesus, gimme a break.”

Jess gives a soft, exasperated sigh. Dean looks over his other shoulder at her when she says Cas’s name. She raises both arms and points at her wrist. He looks back at Cas and watches as he lifts his other hand out of the water. Bile stings at the back of his throat when he sees how deep the cord has dug into the skin and how blood is bubbling up around the edges.

He barely hears Jess’s gasp and Sam’s swearing. All he’s got is the pounding of his own blood in his ears and the rage pulsing hard through his veins. “I should’ve broke both their fuckin’ faces. Christ, look at that.” Dean reaches out and freezes when Cas twitches and ducks down until the water is over his nose. He drops his hand a bit. “Sorry, Cas. I’m not gonna hurt you. I promise.”

Cast does the adorable pinch-y face again and Dean’s anger melts just slightly. He slips up out of the water a bit and points at himself again. “Cas?”

Dean forces a smile, nods, and points at him. “Castiel. Cas.”

He nods and Dean praises the powers that be because that actually earned him a little smile. Dean grins wide and it’s only a moment later when Cas holds out his sore wrist, the stupid hoop-stick dragging beneath it.

“Sammy, hold me up. I’m gonna need both hands for this.” Dean lets go of the edge and he sinks a little before Sam grabs him under the armpits and pulls him back up. It’s not the most comfortable thing, but it’ll do in a pinch.

Dean tries to be as gentle as he possibly can when he touches where the cord is biting into Cas’s wrist. Clearly his touch isn’t as soft as he thought it was, because Cas hisses and his head-fins spread wide. He yanks his hands away and stares wide-eyed until Cas shoves his wrist forward again and nods.

He closes his fingers around Cas’s hand to keep his arm steady, his thumb resting in the cradle of his palm. With his other hand, he grabs the stick and pushes the release. He pulls it down, lengthening the cord. There’s a sticky tearing sound when he peels it from the wound. Dean has to let go for a moment before he can pull the cord over his hand. He holds the whole contraption behind him and someone takes it, he doesn’t really care who, but he hears it clatter over the floor.

Cas tries to pull away, but Dean tightens his hold to keep him in place. He keeps his other hand held over his shoulder until he feels a roll of bandages get pressed into his palm. Cas is watching him like he thinks Dean is going to bite him.

Dean smiles softly and makes a few gentle shushing noises. He says Cas’s name slowly, calmly, hoping to sooth him. It must work because Cas doesn’t try to pull away and he visibly relaxes, even if it’s just by a little bit. Dean guides his wrist underwater to let the salt water clean the wound. Cas watches closely as Dean starts to wrap it in the bandage.

He has no idea why, but Cas looks up over Dean's shoulder. Judging by the direction, he's probably looking at Sam. Dean mentally shrugs it off and focuses on finishing the wrapping and tying it in a knot. He lets go with a flourish and smiles. “All finished!”

Cas looks at his wrist closely, prodding at it with his fingers. With how intently he’s looking at it, Dean wonders if he has things like cloth and stuff where he comes from. As if he’s satisfied with it, Cas looks up at him and opens his mouth. He presses his lips together almost immediately after, looking frustrated for a moment before saying one thing. “Dean.”

He grins, because he knows exactly what Cas is trying to say. “You’re welcome.”

Sam lets go and Dean twists to grab at the wall again. It takes much grunting , pulling, probably more than a few uncomfortable touches, and both Sam and Jess’s help to get back over the wall. Finally back on his feet, Dean shuffles side to side and plucks at his jeans. Christ, they’re really fucking uncomfortable and if he wears them much longer, the friction burn is going to be _painful_.

He watches Cas, worry gnawing a pit into his stomach. “Is he going to be okay?”

A heavy hand falls on his shoulder. “We’ll make sure Alistair and Gordon aren’t left alone with him. And you can come in here whenever you want. If anyone asks, Jess and I gave you permission because Castiel likes you and we’ll learn more from him if he makes nice with you.”

Dean really shouldn’t be feeling _happy_ about that. It’s all sorts of wrong, but it’s true nonetheless. No one else might notice, but he can totally pick out the strains of jealousy under Sam’s words. He does a few more mental high-fives because, amazingly enough, the mermaid trusted _him_ , talked to _him_. Sam may be the genius, but Dean is the one with the _skills_.

He sees Cas’s head-fins perk, probably because Sam said his name. Sam leans across the opening to grab at the bars and Cas’s expression falls. He sighs and sinks, keeping level with Dean when he jumps down from the platform to pick up his clothes. Dean watches closely, his entire body tensing when Cas breaks the surface again and actually _reaches for Sam._

It’s all well and good when he puts himself in harm’s way. But God help Cas if he hurts his brother.

Cas pulls at Sam’s lab coat and it takes a moment before Sam leans back a bit and plucks at his coat and then his shirt. Cas nods and tilts his head again. There’s something going that probably leads back to before Dean even got here, but Sam says “Clothes.” and Cas repeats it, nods again, and then full on twists back underwater in some kind of sideways summersault.

Dean pulls on his shirts but doesn’t bother with his socks or boots. He’ll just be extra careful with where he steps on the way to his bunk when he goes to change his jeans. They’re already starting to rub funny and he utters a silent plea, begging the Powers That Be that he doesn’t get jean-burn on his junk. Hopefully his underwear will be enough of a barrier.

Cas is watching him and when Dean looks up, he mouths a word. He laughs, because Cas just looks so pleased with himself for learning the word ‘clothes’ and it’s really pretty damn adorable. He’s smiling and even if it’s small on his lips, it reaches his eye and it just really, really suits him. Cas rolls away and slides effortlessly through the water to the back wall where he sits on his tail and starts examining his bandaged wrist again.

He picks up his boots and shoves his socks into one of them. Oh god, the jeans are getting worse and he’s half tempted to strip them off here and walk back to his bunk in his underpants. Somehow, he’s pretty sure that would just get him a stern talking to from no less than four people (Sam, Jess, Bobby and, worst of all, Lilith).

“I’m going to go get changed and grab something to eat. If you guys need me, text me.”

“Of course.” Jess nods and smiles. “Thanks for all your help.”

“No problem. I’ll come visit again after my shift is over.”

Sam is all sucked up in looking at whatever data he’s got on his screen and he waves over his shoulder when Dean smacks him on the back. Dean stops at the door and glances back at Cas. He quirks a little smile and waves at him. Cas waves back and Dean can barely admit it to himself that that makes him pretty damn happy.

He’s just turning away when a pressure starts in his head. It hurts like a headache, and goddamn he better not be getting one. There’s just one flare of pain that pushes hard at his temples. It lasts for all of two seconds before it’s like a freaking dam breaks and there’s a flood of… of _something_. It sends him reeling because that’s _gratitude_ spreading thick over his thoughts and it sure as fuck isn’t his.

Then there are _words_. Ones that aren’t even his, ones that aren’t even English or any other language he’s ever fucking heard. The only thing he recognizes is his name.

And then he walks right into the door frame.


	3. Special

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 3.**

Dean will deny, to his dying day, that he had ran way.

After walking head first into the door frame, everything else is kind of a blur. He sort of remembers hearing Sam and Jess saying words he didn’t actually pay any attention to. At the time, he was more than a little distracted with the gratitude in his head that _wasn’t his._ Then that gratitude had slipped into concern and he’d turned around holding his head and stared at Cas.

Castiel.

A motherfucking _mermaid._ One who is, apparently, Charles freaking Xavier and can _talk with his mind_. And he had been in Dean’s head. He had been in his head all concerned and confusioned and Dean had done something with his hand in a weird ‘it’s nothing’ gesture at Sam and Jess before he’d turned tail and _ran_. That foreign pressure in his head had stuck around up until he shoved passed Meg after beeping out into the stairwell and then it had let go.

 _Reluctantly_.

He had actually been able to _feel_ that. Dean had been able to feel Cas’s emotions and that was fucking _terrifying._ It’s bad enough that he’s got to be in his own head. No one else should be in it. And Christ, that’s the biggest invasion of his privacy he’s ever frikken had.

And he’d been in _prison_.

So Dean had ran. He’d skipped lunch altogether, begged off the rest of his shift onto Bobby – claiming to be sick (as if Bobby couldn’t see through that before he’d even opened his mouth) and holed up in his room. Literally. After changing out of his wet clothes, he’d crawled into bed, dragged the curtain shut around his bottom bunk and hid under the covers. It’s not like putting a million physical barriers between him and Cas could keep him out of his head – but he sure as hell isn’t going to start walking around wearing a hat made of tinfoil.

He maintains some small amount of dignity by not pulling his pillow over his head and managing to not curl into the fetal position. But Dean is one hundred percent hidden under his blanket, hugging his chest and paranoid beyond reason that the alien touch will come back and push at his brain and read all his thoughts. They’re _his_ thoughts. No one else is supposed to see them or hear them and holy fuck what did Cas get from him in that little time that he was in there.

Could Cas even understand it? Dean thinks in English. He doesn’t think in whatever weird Atlantean-mermaidian bullshit that had… had… had what? What exactly had happened? There was the headache pressure and then foreign feelings. And with those feelings had come… what? Words? Words and his name and more feelings. That was it. There hadn’t been anything else.

Would he be able to feel it if Cas had been sifting through his memories? Would he notice? In X-men no one but other psychics notice when they use their mind-mojo to go through other peoples’ thoughts. Does this apply to mermaid psychics?

All this chasing his thoughts in circles is making his head hurt and Jesus fuck it better be just a regular headache and not Cas poking at his brain again.

“Dean!”

He doesn’t flinch. He _doesn’t._

Dean untangles himself from the blanket and pulls back the curtain. Bobby is standing in the doorway. He’s got a bucket in one hand and he’s got his stern ‘listen here’ face on. He really doesn’t like it when Bobby wears that face because it means he’s got something for him to do and right now Dean doesn’t want to do anything except have his quiet little freak out in privacy.

Though maybe he should take back his shift and bury himself in an engine because all his freak out is doing is giving him a headache and he’s starting to want to really just forget that anything had actually happened. Doing something to take his mind off of it will be better than stewing in what-ifs and whys and holy fucks.

Bobby is practically glaring at him from under his hat. “Since _someone_ dumped their duties on me, I ain’t got the time needed to deliver this upstairs.” He puts the bucket down heavily just inside the door. “You’re looking better so take this to Sam.”

Oh God no. Sam is where Cas is and Cas has those spooky mind powers and – holy shit does Sam know? Maybe he should ask, or tell him, or something. Because what if Cas is poking around inside Sam’s head without Sam even knowing. He could be learning all about them without anyone even knowing it. And yes, he is totally going to conveniently forget that Cas had to _ask_ what clothes were called.

He practically vaults out of the bed. “Yeah, sure. I’ll take that up. And I’ll come back to help. I’m feeling better.”

“Of course you are.” Bobby gives him a kind of knowing look and dear God, he probably thinks Dean was masturbating or something.

Rather than correct him and call attention to how he’s being a giant pussy over this, Dean just shrugs and grabs the bucket. He steels himself. He’ll talk to Sam and make sure he’s not been mind-raped by a merman without his knowledge or consent. As awesome as Cas is, nobody fucks with Dean’s little brother while he’s around. Not again.

That doesn’t change how halfway down the hall to science-geek home base his stomach starts doing flip flops and his palms start sweating. He’s not sure if he’s excited to get to see Cas again – because Jesus Christ he’s so freaking _cool_. Or if he’s terrified out of his head that he’s going to try and get into his head again.

Sam said Cas was smart. And shit, yes he totally is. He’s not like a dog or a cat or something. Hell, he’s practically human. Just… one that breathes water and has fishy-bits. Didn’t the pioneers or something think Indians weren’t human either when they first met? Well Christ. What if they’re on the cusp of discovering a whole new kind of human and they’ve got him locked up in some cage like an animal.

But he’s not. He has his own language and he was in Dean’s head with his feelings. He understood that Dean wanted to help him and despite everyone being complete asshats to him so far, he didn’t hurt or drown Dean when he was a dumbass and climbed into the tank.

Dean stops outside the door and leans his head against the cool surface. He tries to get his thoughts in order because there’s no way he’s going to walk in there and try and ask Cas to not… talk to him how he probably talks to other mermaids.

Well shit.

That just makes him sound like a douchebag.

What the hell is he supposed to do then? It’s making his chest constrict just thinking about someone else being in his head and hearing his thoughts and fuck fuck _fuck_. He’s got to go in there and deliver this bucket of – bucket of what? Dean never even stopped to check and see what the hell he was carrying. Oh. Fish. For Cas, no doubt. Because that’s what he eats right? Of course he does. With those teeth of his, what else would he eat?

Dean thumps his head against the door once before pulling out his swipe card and passing it over the sensor. He shoves it open without much preamble, half hoping Alistair or Gordon is standing on the other side so he can smack them with it. Their nowhere in sight. It’s just Cas in the tank and Sam, Jess and Meg hanging out by the computers.

Sam stands. “Dean, what’s up?”

He was planning on answering, he really was. But the response died on his tongue the moment he saw movement in the tank out of the corner of his eye. His paranoia blows through the roof and Dean just shoves the bucket into Sam’s arms, turns and walks right back out. If he sprints down the hall and practically dives down the stairs to the engine level, well, that’s just because he’s really fucking excited to get back to work.

Engines, man. Machines. They’re uncomplicated and easy to understand and he sometimes really just prefers them to actual people. Now is one of those times. Bobby kind of gives him a look when he gets his toolbox and a creeper, but Dean ignores it and goes to check out the water filtration system because it’s been a bit wonky the last few days.

He’s under it less than half an hour before someone grabs his foot and yanks him out. He nearly slides right off the creeper.

“Dean-o.”

“Meg.” He glares up at her and her stupid little amused grin that just makes it look like she’d be more than comfortable leaving you in a tub of ice while she sells your kidneys.

“I need you to come with me.” She stoops and grabs his arm and maybe if he wasn’t twice her size and probably three times heavier than her, she might actually have been able to pull him up. Instead she kind of just makes his shoulder jerk a little.

“Can I help you with something?” He shakes her off.

Her smile has kind of listed into a frown and it’s just a little unnerving. “Lilith wants to see you.”

Dean’s blood runs cold and he sits up. “This about earlier? Because Alistair totally fucking deserved that for what he and Gordon were doing to Cas. You were there. You saw it.”

She just shrugs and this time she grabs him by the shirt to drag him to his feet. Dean takes pity and actually stands. “I suppose it could be considered something that’s got to do with that. Just hurry up.”

“Yeah, yeah. Her highness hates being kept waiting.” He throws his gloves on top of his tool box and follows after her.

When Meg opens the door to the science level instead of continuing up the stairs in the general direction of Lilith’s rooms, Dean’s heart decides to take up residence somewhere in his throat. Every curse he knows filters through his head and he jumps when Meg clamps a hand around his wrist and practically drags him down the hall.

He only really starts to protest when she pulls him through the door.

“I’m a big boy, y’know. I can walk on my own.”

“You looked like you were ready to bolt. I wasn’t taking any chances.”

“Where would I run to? What would I even be running from?” Dean tries to not be ridiculously obvious with how he’s _not_ looking at the tank.

“Good question. But are you sure it’s me you’re directing that question to?” She takes him straight around to the platform on the other side of the tank and Dean’s retort never sees daylight because Lilith is _right there_ and she’s got that scary ass smile that’s a helluva lot like Meg’s but with the creep factor cranked to maximum.

Lilith leans down and Dean immediately adverts his eyes down to somewhere around her ankles. “Hello Dean.”

He mumbles a greeting. He’d learned early on that Lilith is not only five different kinds of psycho, but she has this think about status. According to her, Dean ranks somewhere just above plankton. He’d gotten yelled at for a solid twenty minutes the first time they met for making eye contact and not showing her the right kind of ‘respect’.

That should have been his first hint not to come work for the crazy bitch. But Sammy and Jess had already been hired on, Bobby was half way through filling out all the bullshit forms he needed, and if Dean didn’t get this job, who knows how many months it would’ve been before he got to see them all again after their stupid research trip was over. Thank God for his damn near _glowing_ recommendations from his professors and his corrections officer and his dentist and whoever the hell Lilith dredged up to talk to before agreeing to high his lower-class ass.

“I need you to do something for me, Dean. I want to talk to my mermaid, but he’s not listening to Sam. I’m told you’ve made friends with him. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

Dean damn near shits himself when Lilith puts her fingers under his chin and makes him look up. When she smiles wide, like she’s ready to suck his soul out through his eyeballs, practically every muscle in his body locks up.

“Be a dear and call Castiel over for me, won’t you?”

She asks it like a question but Dean knows it’s an order. And if he doesn’t do it, she’d probably take away his food rights for the next three days or something. She’s run the boat like a her own private dictatorship and if the money wasn’t downright _ridiculous_ , he would have forced the others to jump ship after their first day.

Dean jerks his chin from her touch. Her fingers are too warm – the creepy kind of warm. As if she’d been holding a hug cup of coffee before touching him. He forces a nod and steals a quick glance at Sam. He looks about as happy with this situation as Dean feels.

He turns to the tank. Cas is sitting in the far corner, sitting on the curled fold of his tail. He sits up straighter, his fins flaring a little and Jesus he actually looks like he’s relieved – hell, maybe even _happy_ – to see Dean. Looking at Cas takes his breath away again. It hasn’t even been half a day, so it’s not like Dean forgot what he looked like. But _shit_.

Cas even fucking _waves_ at him. Dean forces a small smile and waves back before pressing his hands to the glass. He hopes Cas knows what the ‘come here’ jerk of his head means, because he really doesn’t want to go all out trying to get him to come over. Dean half hopes Cas doesn’t listen and that he just ignores them all. At the same time, he thinks it would be in everyone’s best interest – especially Cas’s – that he learns early on to listen to Lilith’s insane demands.

He’s a strange mix of disappointment, relief, and pride when Cas frowns and shakes his head. It’s just a quick flick of his eyes, but he most definitely looks from Dean to Lilith. Jesus Christ, he shouldn’t be in a fucking cage. He _understands_.

Unless he’s mind melding with someone and reading their thoughts and finding out what a heinous bitch Lilith is that way. Dean rubs his hand over his face, trying to push those thoughts out of his head. He hasn’t felt that headache feeling yet, so there’s no real reason to freak out. Not yet at least.

“Well?” Lilith doesn’t sound happy. Which is obvious really. She may be a rich, crazy bitch, but she does have eyes and it’s pretty damn clear that Cas isn’t coming over just because Dean called.

He shakes his head and looks up at her. “I asked and he said ‘no’. I can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

Lilith glares down at him and a chill starts to trip down his spine. Clearly that was _not_ what she wanted to hear. But it’s not like he can really do anything about it. Any other thought process promptly cancels itself out when the pressure starts up in his temples again. Dean flinches at it and jerks around to stare at Cas.

He’s staring right at Dean, all intense blue eyes and determination. He’s doing it again. He’s trying to get into Dean’s head and that scares the piss out of him. Dean doesn’t want anyone else in his head. Hell, _he_ doesn’t even want to be in his own damn head. It’s full of issues. It’s just one great big fucking mess and if he was allowed booze on this damn trip (instead of only being able to sneak a bit from his stash during what few moments alone he has), then it would be a _drunken_ mess.

Dean keeps staring at Cas and he doesn’t know what to do to keep him out. He tries thinking ‘stay out’ and ‘no’ and he’d shake his head but that would tip off the others to what’s going on and he’s not sure he wants to do that. He’s about eighty-three percent sure that no one knows about Cas’s telepathic touches. If they did, they wouldn’t really need him here to try and convince him to come over, would they?

This time, it’s not like flood gates opening. If anything, it’s like a tap was twisted and only a little stream is getting through. The emotions that push at his thoughts are strained, like they’re coming from farther away. It’s just as surprising and terrifying as the first time.

The foreign touch is softer, more gentle. And it’s not even just emotions this time. As if he was picturing something in his head, and image comes up of Lilith. He’s not looking at her, but it’s almost like she’s right in front of him. And if that’s really Cas pushing at his brain and those are his emotions, then he’s really not happy with Lilith. He’s wary of her and he’s got every right to be.

Lilith is talking at him, but Dean’s too engrossed in his own head to even be paying attention. The pressure in his head backs off just a little. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s weird as hell to have someone else in his head. Though it’s not really… he’s not _in_ his head. It’s more like Cas is sitting at the side lines and reaching out to him.

There’s a soft hope pushing at his thoughts, and it’s like… Dean doesn’t even know how to really describe it, but he thinks that maybe Cas is asking for his trust? That’s the impression he’s getting from the gentle touch and suddenly it’s like a light bulb goes on in his head and Dean understands. This is how Cas communicates and even if they don’t talk with the same words, emotions and images can be transferred through this… this whatever it is.

He still isn’t very happy with the idea of having someone else in his head, but this is starting to get really fucking _cool_. Cas is like a point of alien light pulsing at the edge of his mind and yeah, it’s a weird feeling, but he’s starting to get excited again. Because holy _shit_ telepathy is an actual thing now, it’s actually _real_.

The image of Lilith floats up again and there’s a kind of curiosity to it. Dean’s not really sure how to respond, but he thinks of Lilith’s name. He thinks about all the things he feels when she’s around – how he doesn’t like her, how he’s kind of scared of her, but he still respects her for being as successful in whatever the hell she does as she is, and she’s got his gratitude for hiring his convict-ass.

That confusion around the image of Lilith clears up and gives way to understanding. Her name kind of rebounds back at him, as if it’s something Cas is repeating to himself but still sharing with Dean.

There are sharp fingers suddenly pressing into his shoulder and Dean winces, finally turning back to face Lilith. The frown on her face is actually pretty terrifying and she is way stronger than her slight frame leads him to believe because she actually manages to haul him up onto the platform next to her. And wow, okay, his boss is trying to strip him.

As hot as she is, having Lilith pull his flannel off and toss it aside is more than just a little uncomfortable. He’s not sure what to do to stop her from trying to drag his t-shirt over his head. He could hold her wrists or push her away but that would probably piss her off beyond reason and he’d really like to not do that.

He’s own irritation is getting doubled back at him through this weird connection with Cas and suddenly there’s water splashing down his side while his shirt is halfway over his head. He’s not sure if that’s the reason for the shiver that sends goosebumps rippling over his skin or if it’s Cas’s sex-rough voice hissing Lilith’s name. She gasps and her hands are gone and someone else starts pushing his shirt back over his head.

When he can finally see again, he’s kinda struck dumb by the concern pushing at his brain and wide, worried blue eyes. “Dean?”

Dean shakes himself out of the stupid funk and shoves his shirt back down. Cas is half hanging over glass wall and he’s obviously holding his breath. Worry start pressing at his own lungs. Taking fish out of water is crazy stupid and Cas won’t be able to breathe leaning over the tank wall like that.

“It’s okay, Cas.” He starts pushing at his shoulders, trying to get him to go back into the water. Yeah, he’s thankful as fuck that Cas was bothered enough by what Lilith was doing to intervene but Christ, he needs to get back in the water before he starts suffocating.

He’s relieved probably more than he really should be when Cas Is finally back underwater and his gills ripple with his first breath. But he’s back up like he was before in a moment, those fans along his tail rippling as if keeping him in place. There’s a weird kind of curiosity tickling at his mind, but it’s soft – like Cas is trying not to be intrusive.

Lilith is screaming about how Cas just attacked her and Dean shoots her a glare, annoyed with her. “He thought you were attacking me.”

“How did he know my name? Who told him?”

Dean’s stomach knots. He’s the one who told Cas, using this weird connection that apparently nobody else knows about. It’s like a secret between him and Cas, something just for them. Dean’s never had that with anyone except Sammy and it’s kind of a really cool feeling. If he tells them it was him – when he clearly hasn’t talked to Cas alone at any point to tell him – he’ll be outing this link and they’ll want Cas to talk them too.

Oh God, how pathetic is he? He’s being selfish about a mermaid.

Amusement tickles at his thoughts and when Cas is almost smiling when Dean sends him a dark look over his shoulder. So apparently Cas felt that and Dean needs to be way more careful with his thoughts if he’s going to let him be in his head. Though it’s not like he’s figured out how to keep him out yet. But it’s starting to be not so bad.

He kind of likes it even. 


	4. Inappropriate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place over Chapters 3 through 8.**

The first time Dean has a boner because of Cas, he doesn’t exactly start out thinking of him. He’s having his customary morning shower wank and his thoughts are actually on focusing on Miss July from the calendar in his garage back home. Dean makes the mistake of picturing her blue eyes looking down at him as she rides him in the backseat of the impala and he has that one stray thought of “I’ve seen bluer” that makes him think of Cas.

He literally only met Cas yesterday and for the most part he had been absolutely scared shitless of him because he’d _been in Dean’s head_. Now that he’s accepted the weirdness of the kin-connection and gotten kind of used to it after spending half the night talking to Cas, he actually kind of misses having it right now.

But he’s known Cas less than twenty-four hours and a single stray thought in the shower about his eyes being more blue than Miss July’s deviates his thoughts from her straight to him. And suddenly Dean finds himself thinking about what Cas would look like as a human and if it’s possible for his sex-rough voice to get even more coarse after a good, hard fucking.

That sends a whole new bolt of heat straight through him and even though he’s got the shower cranked all the way up on hot to sooth the muscles of his back, it feels cold. Dean leans his forehead against the cool tiles and bites down on his forearm. It’s not hard enough to break the skin or anything, but it’ll stifle any sounds he might make. He can be pretty vocal in bed (or on his own) sometimes, and he doesn’t exactly want to alert anyone else who might be in the room on the other side of the curtain about his current activities.

He imagines Cas’s hair sex-wild, and how Dean could make that pale skin – skin that has probably never been touched by the sun – flush red along his neck and chest. Dean remembers how flexible Cas had been doing his yoga during then night and that only fans the fires burning in his gut. Images flash through his head of a human Cas, bent over various surfaces, panting and begging with that silk-over-gravel voice for Dean to let him come.

The tight grip of his fingers around his cock and the soap slick slide is nothing to what it feels like pushing into the heat of another body. But it’s not imagining Cas on his back, his legs around Dean’s waist while Dean fucks into him, leaving bruises from his fingertips on his hips – it’s not that that sends Dean spiraling over the edge.

All It takes is one image of human-Cas on his knees, pink lips wrapped around Dean’s dick and looking up at him as he sucks him down. Those blue eyes that led to this and the stare Cas has, the one that seems like he can see right through you. Half the time he probably can, with that kin-connection of his. That one little image has Dean fighting to hold back a groan as he comes, white lightening riding through his bones.

He damn near almost gets weak in the knees and there are deep teeth marks in his arm when he finally lets go. For a moment, as Dean steps back to let the water wash away the evidence, he feels all sorts of guilt for thinking about his new friend like that. And if he walks back into that room with that kind of feeling in his head, Cas is going to notice it. Chances are, Cas won’t let anything like that go either. He’ll poke and prod with his mind until Dean gives over exactly _why_ he’s feeling guilty. Then Cas will know Dean jerked himself off to thoughts of him and Dean will have effectively ruined any and all chances he has of being friends with Cas.

Dean thinks it over while he finishes his shower and gets dressed. Nobody gives him any second looks while he’s pulling his clothes on, and he silently gives thanks to the wank-gods for keeping him and his solo time safe from prying eyes or ears for yet another shower.

But the more he thinks about it, the less guilty he feels. It’s not like he actually thought of _Cas_ exactly. Cas is a fin-kin, he’s got scales, and fins, and shit. The person that Dean had thought of was most definitely human. He had two working legs with pale, smooth skin – though now that Dean thinks about it, he’d probably look better with a tan – and there wasn’t anything out of place. Dean doubts that the real Cas has anywhere on him that he’d be able to stick anything anyway.

So Dean didn’t _really_ think of Cas. He thought of a person with a passing resemblance to him. A distant, different species cousin, maybe. And that’s good enough for his conscience to be wiped clean. When he finds Bobby waiting for him outside the shower with a take-out box and a bucket of live fish (that he’d specially requested as a surprise for Cas), there’s not a speck of guilt in him and he’s eagerly anticipating having Cas in his head again.

He practically inhales his breakfast, barely making conversation with Bobby about his current situation, before Bobby leaves him to get back to the daily check on the engines. Dean ditches the empty container and hefts the bucket. He can barely wait to feel how happy Cas is going to be to get to eat something other than dead fish.

x

The next time it happens, it’s in the shower again. But this time Dean doesn’t think of anyone else but Cas. His boner is even entirely accidental. He’s rubbing two-in-one shampoo and conditioner into his hair hard enough that he’s hoping to scrub out the memory of calling Cas ‘handsome’. He’d rather scrub it out of time itself, but there are just some things he can’t do no matter how awesome he is.

It had just been a throwaway comment, one he’d made hundreds of times to Sammy and other guys and girls over the years. But when Cas had turned from the mirror to look at him with confusion pulsing through the kin-connection, a small frown pinching his forehead and pulling at his mouth, and his head tilted in that ridiculously adorable way –

A shudder shakes down his spine and Dean’s hands drop uselessly to his sides. He lets the water run the suds out of his hair while he keeps thinking. It was supposed to be another casual remark. But then he realized it wasn’t. He really had thought that Cas was handsome. Hell, he thinks Cas is every word in every language ever that could possibly even slightly mean ‘attractive’. And in more than one way, too.

Sometimes he finds himself thinking about Cas as he’s swimming in the tank like he would think about a tiger pacing in its cage. Other times Dean catches himself thinking about Cas like he would think about an attractive guy he spots across the bar. Either way makes his stomach twist into weird shapes.

Being asked to explain what he’d meant to Cas could have potentially cracked him open like a Kinder Surprise egg for Cas to poke around in all his feelings. Cas might have found out that a few days ago Dean come harder than he had in months just by thinking about him. Or he might have found out that every so often, when the kin-connection is slack between them and neither one is paying attention to the other’s thoughts, Dean sometimes thinks about what it would be like to kiss Cas.

Any chance of Cas finding out about that scared the fuck out of him and Dean had done something he didn’t even know he could. He panicked and snapped the kin-connection closed. It had taken a little thinking later, when he was getting undressed for his shower, to realize that all he’d done was imagine their link like fluttery ribbons connecting his mind with Cas’s. And when he cut the ribbons with a giant pair of imaginary scissors, Cas simply wasn’t in his head anymore.

Dean hates himself a little bit for cutting Cas out like that. But Cas has done it to him before and there was no way Dean was going to let Cas know about those kissing thoughts. It wouldn’t be so bad if he was thinking about kissing a human Cas. He’d certainly feel less guilty. No, it can never be something easy like that.

Sometimes Dean wakes up in the middle of the night and sees Cas sleeping curled up in the tank and he wonders what it would be like to kiss the real Cas. He probably has water in his mouth pretty much all the time when he’s swimming. Which means, if Dean kissed him, Cas would probably taste like sea water – and that’s not exactly the best taste in the world. But if it means getting to kiss Cas, Dean thinks he could totally get over that. Hell, he’s been in the tank a few times and the first couple times he’s licked his lips, it was kind of gross – but after a while, you don’t even really notice the taste.

And Cas’s skin would probably be salty too – not that he’s really thought about all the other places he could put his mouth on Cas… yet. Or would Cas taste like fish? When he helped Cas back into the tank earlier, after Alistair and Gordon had nearly killed him to get their damn x-rays (he quickly stops thinking about that because he can already feel the anger starting to build up again), he’d finally gotten to really touch Cas.

He’s colder than Dean expected – Sam said it’s because Cas is probably an ectotherm. Dean tuned him out when Sam started going into the long winded speech about cold-blooded animals and the kinds that can sort of adapt to changes in temperature, so on and so forth, blah blah blah, _boring_. Either way, Cas’s skin and scales had been cool to the touch.

And his scales, _holy shit_. He thought they were gonna be like fish scales, but they’re not. They’re more like a snake’s. He’s got patches of them too on his cheekbones, coming off of the fins on the side of his head, and Dean thought that Cas had them on his knuckles too but those are just splotches of black colour. According to Sam, Alistair actually had to cut out a section of Cas’s scales when he couldn’t just pull them off – no, not thinking about that. Not. Thinking. About. That.

It makes Dean’s head hurt thinking about all the ways Cas is different. But he really doesn’t care. He likes him. For all that he’s not human, he’s still pretty damn human. Enough for everything that they’re putting him through to be beyond wrong. If he thought it would do them any kind of good, Dean would have called in the authorities days ago. But they’re sailing far enough off the coast of Africa to be in international waters where they’re basically fucked. And what good would it do? Who would believe him?

“Hey, hi. We’ve got a mermaid on board and Lilith is being a cunt to him. Could you perhaps send some officers out here to arrest her ass? Thanks.”

Yeah, that would go over so well. If they didn’t laugh in his face and hang up on him, if anybody did come to save Cas, would they really let him go? Fuck no. They’d either force him to show them where his colony lives so they could capture them or some other horrible thing, or they’d do much worse experiments to him. Jesus, they might go all Area 51 on him and Cas would never see the sea again.

Dean groans and leans forward until his forehead is resting against the shower wall again. Why does he have to be a part of a race of giant douche nozzles? It’s not like _everyone_ is an asshole, but basically anyone with any sort of power is and he can’t think of a damn thing to do to help Cas other than to get him off this boat before they get too far from his home.

Home. Dean knows Cas has several siblings and that he misses them and the rest of his colony so badly it sometimes _hurts_ for Dean to feel it. If he focuses hard enough, Dean can pick out the longing Cas has that’s constantly churning in his head. There’s always a yearning for the open sea and his family and Dean catches himself thinking – often bitterly, which only makes him feel guilty afterward – that someone as awesome as Cas probably has a pretty lady waiting for him back home. What if Cas has kids too? He hasn’t spoken of them yet, but maybe he just doesn’t want to share that part of himself.

Of course just has Dean feeling even worse for jerking off to thoughts of him.

It only makes Dean want to get Cas off this boat more. Before he finds himself lusting after a fin-kin worse than he already is. But getting Cas free is proving to be harder than anything. Alistair had already figured out that he needs to keep Dean out of the way if he wants to do his experiments on Cas. They’d locked him in the shower and he’d had to take the door apart to get out and save Cas from anything worse than an x-ray and a couple samples.

 _Fuck_. Cas hadn’t even been able to move properly for nearly forty-five minutes because they had given him such a big dose. He’d been spread out on the floor with those two hovering over him like diseased vultures and it had set off every protective aspect of Dean’s personality that he has. And when he had picked him up, Cas had slumped against him like a rag doll. He smelled exactly like Dean expected him to; like the sea (and not like fish – which was kind of a huge relief).

So if he doesn’t smell like fish, Cas probably doesn’t taste like it either. At least not his skin. His scales were probably a different story. Since they’re more snaky, maybe they would taste more like a snake? Not that Dean has any particular itches to be tasting Cas’s tail. But when you sometimes catch yourself thinking about what it would be like to drag your tongue over someone’s stomach – Cas doesn’t even have a freaking _belly button_ , what the hell is up with that – you kind of segue into wondering what they taste like.

Dean’s just thankful he hasn’t started thinking yet about what the real Cas would look like with his head tilted back, those wicked teeth of his digging into his bottom lip as Dean goes down on – no shit, _no_. He told himself he wasn’t going to think of Cas like that again. And he’s not. Cas is a _friend_ , and a tentative one at best because assholes keep making it hard for him to trust humans in any way. And how the hell is he supposed to face Cas with these kind of thoughts in his head?

But… Jesus. Would those ruffled fans along his tail ripple like they do when he’s surprised? Would his fins flare wide or would they go flat before he comes? Would he be like Pam and leave claw marks all down Dean’s back? Or would he be more gentle? It’s hard to tell with Cas sometimes. His thoughts oscillate between the hard mindset of the soldier Dean knows he is and something more soft and caring. It makes it all that much more hard for Dean to place him.

His shower is half over and he’s spent most of it thinking of Cas – which is exactly how he’s spent practically every damn day since he met him. This is getting fucking ridiculous. Dean hasn’t thought of anyone except Sammy this much before. Not since Cassie and _that_ is a whole new level of weird he doesn’t want to get anywhere near.

Dean grabs the soap and dumps a generous amount on a wash cloth. He’s too irritated and confused by every insane thing going through his head to even think of attempting to rub one out today. It’s only been a couple days since he did it last and he could probably stand to hold out another day or so. If not, he could probably sneak out later this afternoon and find one of his hook ups, or he could just take another shower tomorrow morning. If the need is pressing, he’ll figure something out.

He’d have to make sure Cas is okay first, before he does anything. Either he’ll have to get Sam and Jess or Bobby to stay in the room while he’s gone, because he is _not_ leaving Cas alone in there. Dean doesn’t want Cas to have another freak out, and he definitely does _not_ like feeling all of Cas’s panic over what Alistair or Gordon could do to him.

And he’s back to Cas. Again. _Jesus Christ_. That wasn’t even a whole thirty seconds before he’d swung back to thinking about him and really he should do something about that. How long is it going to be before he starts thinking about Cas in worse ways than he already is? They’re dangerous, these stray thoughts of what Cas would be like with all his warrior composure stripped away, leaving him trembling and gasping above him –

Whoa, _hello_.

Dean stops wiping the cloth under his armpit and stares down at the budding boner valiantly making an effort to stand at attention. Really, that’s all it takes? Granted, Dean hasn’t really explored the idea of Cas fucking _him_. But that’s certainly an interesting thought. Logistically, that might be the only way it could work between them. It’s been awhile since he’s been on the receiving end – not since before Cassie – but he’s still open to the idea.

Christ, judging by the goosebumps and the chills tripping over his ribs, he’s pretty damn sure he’s _really_ fucking open to that idea. In fact, he likes it so much that he’s already dropped the cloth and is sliding a hand down his stomach as his imagination switches gears and goes into over drive.

Would Cas like it better with Dean on his back? Legs spread and spine arched, head pushing into the pillow as Cas works in him? Or would he want Dean on his knees, fucking him from behind with his mouth on the back of his neck and his hands on his hips? Maybe Cas would be more submissive, letting Dean pin him to the bed and ride him until they’re both panting against each other’s mouths.

He imagines Cas kissing him hard, the taste of the sea on his tongue as Cas licks at his lips and sooths where his teeth have dragged over his skin. The press of claws against his back, almost hard enough to break the skin but not quite. The slide of scales under his legs as Cas presses into him, that first burning stretch and the aching pleasure that comes with every slide in and out.

Dean fumbles a hand between his legs, pressing and rubbing hard at his perineum. He’s never really been one to finger himself unless it’s to prepare for something bigger. But this little hot spot does the trick just fine. He leans his back against the wall and spreads his legs to give himself more room. The angle isn’t the best, but he’ll have to make do.

He’s grateful it’s nearly noon and absolutely no one showers at this time of day. It saves him from having to bite his lip to keep from making any noise. Right now it’s just little gasps and the odd grunt as a bolt of white heat flares through him at a particularly good press of his fingers or twist of his wrist. But he never knows if a moan or two might claw their way out.

His thoughts slide into thinking about Cas like this. Cas has been under constant surveillance since he got captured, and no one has said anything about him having any kind of private time. Which is good because Dean would probably feel weirdly jealous - but, at the same time, could be bad. Unless fin-kin don’t need to clean the pipes as often as humans do.

How would Cas touch himself? Would it be any different from how Dean is doing it? Would he lay on his side or his back and use both hands to jack himself? Or would he use his hips more, thrusting into his fist or against the sheets?

God, yes. That’s a good image. Cas spread out on Dean’s bed, tail stretched out over the edge and all that pale skin open for Dean to touch while Cas’s hands slide over his dick. Dean wants to ruffle him up. He wants to suck a few bruises into that pale skin and listen to Cas groan, watch him squirm and digs his fingers into Dean’s thighs as he rocks in his lap, sliding further down on Cas cock.

It’s thinking about Cas’s eyes again, staring up – or down – at him in that same see-through-you stare that sends Dean crashing over the edge. He makes a choking noise as he strokes himself through the aftershocks before his shoulders slump. Dean’s already standing under the spray and he lets it run over him for a few more minutes, the water slowly getting colder, before he’s steady enough to pick up the washcloth and get back to wiping down.

It’s going to be harder to find a way to not be guilty over this while Cas is in his head. There’s no way to trick himself into thinking he thought of someone different this time around. He was most _definitely_ thinking about fins and scales and the real Cas.

Dean thinks about it while he gets the shaving materials Sam texted him about, and he thinks about it all the way back up into the room. Sam, Jess and Meg are laughing like it’s going out of style and his mid-day wank gets pushed to the back of his mind.

x

Dean doesn’t get a proper chance to have some alone time after that. Cas makes his escape attempt and Dean doesn’t exactly rejoice at getting to hold him again. It’s not the right time and maybe later he’ll think about Cas’s weight against his chest and his face against his neck. He’ll think about how he kissed Cas when he was in the smaller tank and how hard it had been to pull away afterward.

He _won’t_ think about how fucking _angry_ he’d been when Lilith had kissed Cas after she put a goddamn collar on him. But he might think about how Cas curled around him after that. He’ll try not to think about the miserable noises he made, but instead about how his bedding smelled like the sea. And how easily Cas fits against him, wrapped tight around his legs. He won’t think about how right that felt because ‘right’ doesn’t happen to him. It just _doesn’t_.

He’s scrubbing the tank down, soap suds around his feet and Sam off to his left somewhere. Dean pushes the broom back and forth and it’s good, hard labour. Something to focus on instead and take his mind off everything he _really_ shouldn’t be thinking about. Especially with Cas still in his head while he’s poking around the take-out container of food everyone saved for him last night. At least Dean has discovered a way to keep his more private thoughts hidden and all it took was imagining those thoughts taking place in a room with no doors or windows or cracks for Cas to hear through.

 _(I do_ not _like carrots.)_ Cas’s disgust spins into his head and Dean looks up in time to see him wiping his mouth and glaring down at the take-out container. Dean almost laughs as Cas rinses his mouth out and spits that too before dumping all the carrots into the garbage can.

Dean leans against the broom, propping himself up. _(Try the spaghetti.)_

He really isn’t expecting to find that ridiculously sexy. Cas tilts his head back and uses both hands to feed the spaghetti into his mouth. His stupid tongue darting out to catch the noodle as he lowers it – Dean immediately snaps off his thoughts from Cas. He doesn’t sever the ribbons, but he hides everything behind wall after wall after wall.

It takes everything he’s got to not stare stupidly while Cas eats. But he keeps looking back, catching glimpses of the pale line of his throat and the way it moves when he swallows. It gets _really_ hard to focus on cleaning the tank when Cas starts licking his fingers clean, sucking the sauce from them. Dean is  wearing sweat pants right now and it would be the worst idea in the world to pop a boner because his stupid brain can’t stop thinking about what else Cas could be sucking.

Fuck, is he in heat or something because this is just fucking _ridiculous_.

Jess gets Sam and leaves Dean alone in the tank. They both sit down with Cas and Dean isn’t entirely sure what they’re talking to Cas about, but it has something to do with pictures and whatever they’ve got in the binder Jess brought over yesterday. Dean lets them do their science-y thing, ignoring everything and focusing entirely on working his way across the tank without thinking about Cas or his tongue or his fingers.

He’s almost at the wall when he hears a splash. Dean looks up in time to see Cas dive to the opposite side of the little tank and curl up. Immediately, he drops the walls and gropes for those ribbons, pushing his surprise and confusion up along them and into Cas’s head. His only response is the severing of the connection. Sam and Jess both look equally shame faced and irritation starts bubbling under Dean’s skin.

“Sam, what the hell?” He knocks hard on the glass and Sam flinches.

Jess starts glaring at Sam too and she holds up a couple pictures. “He wasn’t paying attention to what Castiel was feeling and he bulled his way through talking about what brought us to the islands.”

“Sorry, I just got caught up in the moment. I didn’t mean to upset him, really. It’s just… Can you believe that it’s Castiel and his brother in these photos? They’re from eight years ago and he barely looks like he’s aged at all!” Sam starts getting excited again, fully immersed in his science-geekness. Jess cuffs him hard in the shoulder and practically shoves him out of his chair, her glare probably more terrifying than Dean’s at the moment.

Sam joins Dean in the tank again, but Dean is too pissed at his little brother to say anything to him. He upset Cas and there’s enough going on in Cas’s life for him to be unhappy about that he doesn’t need them reminding him about a family that Cas is almost certain he’s never going to see again. Which is utter bullshit because if it’s the last thing he does, Dean is going to make sure that Cas gets home.

They scrub down the rest of the tank in silence and Dean is slightly less upset with Sam by the time they get the pump and the hose to rinse down the walls. It’s pushing into the late afternoon and Dean is getting a little hungry.

“Hey, Sammy. Come here.” Dean squats by the pump and gestures. “I’m going to show you how to work this thing.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to be in charge of filling the tank.”

“And where are you going to be?”

“I’ve got some things I gotta do. Now pay attention.”

Dean explains how when the switch is straight up everything is off. Flipping it up starts suction to drain the tank, but flipping it down makes it go in reverse and it’ll suck sea water from under the boat. It’s simple enough and Sam’s big brain is more than capable of keeping that in mind. He grabs a shirt before he leaves and puts on his boots.

Cas still hasn’t moved when he leaves. Dean thinks he might be sleeping and he hopes Cas doesn’t freak out again if he wakes up before he comes back. He stops at the bathroom for a quick piss – lamenting that he doesn’t have the time for a shower after working up a sweat in the tank – and goes to visit Pam.

The infirmary is located on the same side of the ship as Lilith’s rooms. But unlike her level, the floors beneath are still accessible from the main stairwell that runs down the middle of the ship. Dean goes down to the next landing and swipes his card to open the door. It’s fucking ridiculous to have so much security on a research vessel like this – well, that’s what he thought at first. Now that he knows Lilith is trying to make sure that no one steals anything she catches (like a _mermaid_ ), it all makes sense.

Pam has her feet up on her desk and she’s flipping through a magazine propped open in her lap. She grins broadly at him and raises an eyebrow when he walks in the door. “Dean Winchester, I thought you were on house arrest.”

“More or less.” He shrugs. “I can go get food and use the washroom, but I gotta spend most of my time with Cas.”

“Oh, is she your latest conquest? I should’ve figured you found someone new since you haven’t visited me in over a week.” She gives him a saucy wink.

Dean can feel his ears start to heat up and he leans his hip against a cabinet, aiming for nonchalant. He could probably have a quick go with her on the infirmary bed right now, but he’s got to get back soon. “No, _he_ isn’t. Cas – Castiel – is the fin-kin – the mermaid – that Lilith wants to keep as a pet.”

Any kind of seductive teasing is wiped from Pam’s face and she drops her feet to the floor. “I saw him while he was singing, but I didn’t know she wanted him as a pet. That’s –”

“Disgusting. I know. Pam, he’s more human than she is and this morning she slapped a fucking _collar_ on him.” Dean digs his fingers into his arms, crossing them tightly over his chest to keep himself from unnecessarily hitting things. “And she shot him up with a tracking tag. It’s in his back, next to his spine and up by his shoulder blades. There’s a big fucking welt there. Could you come take a look at it? Make sure she didn’t hurt him too badly or anything?”

Her lips quirk and Dean really doesn’t like that knowing look in her eyes. “Aw, lookit you, Winchester. You’re all concerned for your new friend, aren’t you?”

“He’s got a shit deal and until we figure out a way to get him home, I’d rather his time here not be entirely shitty, thanks.”

She hums and tosses her magazine onto the desk. “I was going to go get supper soon, but sure. I can come take a look at your mermaid.”

“They call themselves fin-kin. And he’s not _mine_.” Dean tries not to sound like a sulking baby about that. Just because he keeps fantasizing about Cas – more and more since he found out that not only is Cas single, but he thinks he might be gay and _that_ opened up whole new realms of possibility – doesn’t mean he _wants_ him like that. “He doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“Oh, so he’s unattached then? He doesn’t have any pretty lady-fish waiting for him back home?”

Dean snorts and shakes his head. “Doubtful. Cas is a virgin and he’s pretty sure he’s gay.”

“Pretty sure?”

“Apparently homosexuality isn’t a concept fin-kin have ever considered.”

Pam pauses while stuffing a few instruments into her pockets. “Really? That’s actually pretty interesting. If Sam’s not going to write up about that, I just might. Homosexuality is a lot more common in the animal kingdom than you might think, y’know?”

“Cas isn’t an animal.” He says flatly, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Of course he isn’t, I’m just making conversation.” Pam shrugs and gives him an apologetic grin. “We got time for a bite before we head up there?”

Dean’s stomach growls at the suggestion and he grins back, stepping to hold the door open for her. “Why don’t we get it to-go and surprise Sammy and Jess with dinner? We can grab something for Cas too. He’s trying out our food since Lilith said we’re not supposed to give him any fish until he learns to play nice with her. She wants the kin-connection with him and he’s not giving in.”

Pam leads the way to the cafeteria. “What’s the kin-connection?”

“It’s their telepathic link. How cool is that, huh?” Dean follows her up the stairs and he tells her all about how they don’t speak the same language, but it’s easy enough to communicate with images and emotions. While they’re getting food, he talks about how it’s almost second nature to have Cas in his head now.

Dean is still talking about Cas and recounting the time he thought that guys could get pregnant too  when he unlocks the door and pushes through backwards to keep from dropping the containers. He grins at Cas when he sees that he’s awake and sitting out of the water. He’s _not_ disappoint when he notices that Cas’s attention is focused on Pam.

“Well, hello there, angelfish!”

Dean laughs at the nickname, but something ugly twists in his chest at the idea of someone else giving Cas a nickname. “Jesus, Pam. Don’t call him that. I told you, his name is Castiel. I just call him ‘Cas’.” He hopes she doesn’t call him that either because it’s _his_ name for him.

Christ, he’s acting like a possessive three year old.

He doesn’t really listen to her when she starts talking about dorsal fins, but he does have to agree that Cas’s fins kind of look like wings when they’re spread. Dean is more distracted by the pressure around his head and he doesn’t fight against it. It gives way quickly and that bright, alien light is pulsing at the edge of his mind again. It’s vibrating with anxiety about this new person Dean brought back – and that sends a little pleased thrill spiralling through that ugly feeling.  Dean reacts without thinking, reaching along those trembling ribbons and soothing over Cas’s thoughts.

After a little conversation where he explains who Pam is and what she’s here for, Dean turns off the pump and they all settle down for supper. He sits next to Pam on the counter and he tries to focus on talking with her instead of watching Cas eat. There’s no spaghetti tonight, but the burger and fries might mean more finger sucking and he catches one too many lip-licks of the salt from the french fries for his own good.

He has to snap off his emotions and hides his thoughts again when Cas starts sucking the salt off his fingers and he pointedly looks at Pam, making conversation with her, to avoid watching Cas close his mouth over the webbing between his fingers to clean them too.

_(Can I have more french fries?)_

Cas is asking Jess, but his question goes through all the links he must have. Despite having most of his mind closed off from him, Dean still gets everything Cas sends out. He’s about to hand over the rest of his fries – _not_ because he wants the finger show again – but Jess shakes her head.

“It’s not healthy to have too much fried food.” She looks directly at Dean while saying that and he sticks his tongue out at her.

“Would you like to try some of my salad?” Sam holds out his container and Cas eyes it warily.

_(Is ‘salad’ a word for ‘unappetizing green things’? They look like kelp.)_

Dean immediately tells Pam what Cas just said and they both burst out laughing, ignoring the glares they get from Sam and Jess. Cas’s fins rustle and Dean can feel the soft waves of pleasure rippling along the ribbons to roll against the walls he has around his thoughts. Knowing that Cas likes it when he laughs kindles something warm in his chest.

But then Cas tries the salad, and starts licking the goddamn dressing from his fingers and the webbing between them. Dean is, regrettably, practically hypnotized by it. He’s not staring directly, but he’s definitely watching the way Cas’s tongue flattens against the webbing and how the tip probes along the edges of his fingers, searching out every last drop.

He knows he’s fighting a blush, but Dean can feel it prickling the edges of his ears and along his hairline at the back of his neck. Jesus Christ, this isn’t _fair_. Dean needs to do something about this before Cas gets to the burger and starts having juice running down his fingers.

If he keeps watching, if this keeps up, he’s going to have a problem. All he can see in his head is Cas’s tongue licking up his cock and Pam will _never_ let him live it down if he pops a stiffy in the middle of dinner just because Cas can’t keep his hands clean like a normal person – even though he _isn’t_ a normal person.

Baby back home, give him the strength to get through this. 


	5. Backtracking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 4.**

Cas is practically vibrating with anxiety – worse than anything he’s been feeling since this whole mindmeld thing’s been made between them.  Dean knows it’s mostly his fault. He shouldn’t have left Cas alone with Bobby – a _stranger_ – and Meg, the shark in human skin. It’s no wonder that Cas is freaking the fuck out. But he’s not just panicking. Cas is _angry_ , he’s hurt. Jesus, he’s fucking _scared_. And that’s making Dean all sorts of uncomfortable.

Dean knows shit is seconds away from hitting the fan when Cas actually pushes the bucket full of fish – his breakfast – away from the bars. _(You not hungry, Cas? You barely ate anything last night.)_ It’s starting to make him worry. It’s understandable, what with Cas being nothing short of a prisoner. But still, he was eating just fine the other day.

The growl is muffled through the glass, but Dean hears it loud and clear in his head. It surprises the fuck out of Dean. Cas full on snarls at him and even with the glass between them, he still takes a step back. Dean is here now so why the hell is Cas still freaking out? Why isn’t he calming down or – Cas points at the speakers and the microphone Bobby installed inside the tank and he hisses at them, filling Dean’s head with _hate_.

Like a movie playing behind his eyes, Cas shows Dean that he wants the speakers out. He wants them _gone_. They’re invading his space – what little space Cas can call his own in this hellhole he’s trapped in – and Cas wants them _gone_. All that anger, all that fear and hurt and every single one of Cas’s emotions are spiking along those ribbons that connect their brains.

And it _hurts_.

It’s like one of his migraines, but it’s coming on to fast and it’s fucking _brutal_. Dean staggers under how Cas feels betrayed that Dean wasn’t here when he woke up and that he didn’t answer right away, didn’t come back immediately. He puts both hands to his head, pushing his palms against his temples like it’s going to do any good. It’s not.

Sam is there at his side immediately, hands on his shoulder. “Dean, what’s wrong?”

“Cas is – fuck, it _hurts_ – he’s freaking out and – _shit –_ ” He leans into Sam, clutching at his labcoat like a lifeline and he might start begging him to make it stop, but he’s not sure what his mouth is doing anymore.

This is worse than any migraine he’s had before. His head is going to fucking _explode_. He can’t think, can’t see, can barely even breathe. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it’s going to fucking kill him it hurts so bad. It’s bad enough that he’s sinking to his knees and Sam is the only thing still keeping him upright.

And then it’s all gone and Dean collapses completely into Sam’s side. He’s alone in his head again and there’s nothing but a ghost of the pain slipping away into the empty space where that pulsing alien light that is Cas usually is.

Everything is blurry when he opens his eyes. It might have to do with the tears or with how bad it hurt to have Cas attacking him through the kin-connection like that. Dean didn’t know that he was able to do that – he should have. He’s pretty sure he read in some superhero comic somewhere that telepaths could fuck you up really badly if they put their mind to it.

He meets Cas’s eyes for all of two seconds, taking in the frown. But even with his forehead all pinched like that, Cas looks apologetic. Cas looks like he didn’t realize he was doing what he did and he regrets it. But then that look is gone and Cas is all bared teeth and muffled snarls.

“C’mon, Dean, get up. You need to go see Pam right now.” Sam manages to lift him to his feet and get him to take a few wobbling steps toward the door.

Dean isn’t paying attention to where they’re going. He’s watching Cas swim circles around the tank and throwing himself against the walls. Something in the back of his head is screaming the memory of some shark movie he watched where sharks don’t last in captivity because they keep slamming into the walls until they kill themselves.

“No, y’gotta – Sam, stop pushing me – we have to make Cas stop –” His head hurts with every word, but Dean keeps forcing them out. “ _Don’t!_ ” Meg is standing on the platform with a tranq-gun and Cas fucking _hates_ that thing. He’s going to wake up pissy and trust everyone even less. “Sam, stop her!”

Sam doesn’t get to her fast enough. Cas’s whole body flinches when the dart gets him in the tail and he slams into the wall one more time before he slides down to the glass to the bottom of the tank. Dean stumbles over to the tank, ignoring the pain in the head and he drops to his knees next to where Cas is laying, to where Cas is looking up at him as his eyes go unfocused.

“Cas! I’m sorry, Cas!” He bangs on the glass, trying to keep his eyes on him. “Cas!”

But he’s gone, head dropping until his cheek is pressed against his forearm. His fins and fans stop moving and if it wasn’t for the fluttering gills, Dean would almost think he was dead. Somewhere in the distance Sam is shouting at Meg for shooting Cas up when there were other ways to try to calm him down and she’s shouting back that he was going to kill himself if she didn’t do it.

Passing out seems like a good idea, actually. He should take after Cas and just slump over and sleep for awhile. It would help his aching head. At least he would do that if Sam wasn’t pulling him to his feet and dragging him out the door again, muttering about Pam and getting Dean’s head checked out and who knows what the hell damage Cas did.

x

Cas isn’t talking to him. Hell, he won’t even look at him. The way he’s curled up all tight on himself, ignoring the fish  in the tank no matter how close they swim to him – and Dean knows that Cas has to be hungry, he hasn’t eaten in over a day – it’s making Dean’s chest ache. He’s not sure how much longer he can take sitting on his bed in silence, watching Cas waste away in that tank.

One way or another, he’s going to have to get him back home. Sammy got Cas into this mess, Dean’s gonna be the one to get him out of it.

He’s so deep in thinking about how they’re going to do that – ignoring what parts of his headache the painkillers haven’t gotten rid of – that he almost doesn’t notice when Cas starts singing. It’s soft and gentle and echoes out of the waters like only his songs manage to do. Dean is already getting his guitar before the idea is fully formed.

It takes a few tries to catch onto the tempo of the song. But he’s always been good at jam sessions and playing off other people’s music. He plays an accompaniment to Cas’s voice, strumming and plucking at the strings fast and slow, loud and soft, mirroring the rise and fall of the song.

Cas doesn’t even notice for more minutes than Dean cares to count. It’s actually really relaxing to lean back against the wall, his guitar in his lap, and play. It calms his mind and actually makes his head hurt less. When Cas stops singing, when he lifts his head and glances over his shoulder, Dean pauses before slipping into a more familiar song, strumming ‘Smoke on the Water’.

He has to keep from grinning as Cas pushes up onto his elbows, twisting onto his stomach to better face Dean while he plays. Cas looks fascinated, watching the guitar with wide eyes and following every movement his fingers make.

Dean stops to push the button on the headphones so it stays stuck in. He grins at Cas. “It’s music. Do you like it?”

Cas only tilts his head. It’s that cute, stupid, confused gesture that gives Dean this weird feeling in his stomach like when Sam was ten and forced him to ride the ferris wheel with him. It’s that falling feeling when the ride is at the peak and starts going down. He’s not sure why he’s feeling it when he’s sitting still, but he’s not going to think on it too hard. In fact, he’s just going to laugh it off because that’s easier than thinking about it.

The fact of the matter is, now he has Cas looking at him. Now he has his attention. Now they can talk about what the fuck happened earlier.

x

It only hurts a little bit to have Cas talk into his head again. At least his mind doesn’t feel so dark and empty anymore. And he finally got the chance to explain what happened this morning. Cas understands, Cas forgives, and Cas is actually _really_ sorry for hurting Dean’s head. He’s so apologetic it’s actually really cute how his fins keep twitching and he chews at his bottom lip before he even apologies.

The stupidest thing Dean does is reaching out and _touching_. He barely brushes his fingers over Cas’s shoulders, over the bruises and little cuts, while he asks if he’s okay. Cas doesn’t really seem to notice, doesn’t seem to care. He only shrugs and winces and Dean pulls his hand back quick. He already knows that he shouldn’t be touching Cas. Lilith might freak out – and there’s this tingling he gets on the back of his neck that’s warning him that Cas is all kinds of trouble.

 _(I’m fine. Thank you for your worry.)_ Cas gives him a small smile – all in the eyes and a little twitch in the corner of his mouth. But then his stomach rumbles. Dean can barely hear it, but Cas frowns and looks down.

He laughs and waves Cas away. _(Go eat. I’m gonna dry off and hit the sack.)_ He’s pretty tried and his head still hurts. The painkillers don’t help with the whole ‘staying awake’ thing either.

Getting out of the water is hard as hell. It’s like getting out of a pool without a ladder, except he’s not going to be able to climb up onto a poolside. There’s just a long drop to the platform on the other side. The last thing he expects is cool hands on his hips, just above the waistband of his underpants.

It surprises him so bad, Dean’s arms nearly give out. “Whoa! Cas, the hell are you doing?!”

Cas doesn’t answer. He just holds harder and Dean can already feel the blood rushing to his face – this isn’t the first time someone’s held onto him like that. It’s been a helluva long time – almost ten years – but _Jesus_ , he shouldn’t be thinking about that right now, not when Cas is just pushing him up and over the edge. Not when Cas is obviously just _helping_ him.

Soon as he has his feet under him, Dean grabs at his underpants to keep them from falling. The water makes them heavy and the last thing he wants to do is drop trou in front of Cas. “Warn a guy next time, okay?” He mutters, not really able to look at him. “Humans have a thing called ‘personal space’ and I dunno about you fin-kin but seriously, ask first.”

Cue that head tilt that makes his stomach do that dropping feeling again. Even if Cas’s thoughts are full of confusion, he nods. _(Yes, Dean.)_ He huffs at him when Dean leans over to the wall to grab the bars and put them back down.

Cas hunts his dinner while Dean dries off – naming things like the towel and the guitar and Cas sends little bursts of curiosity down the ribbons into his head – and cleans up his clothes. His boxers aren’t dripping anymore, but he can’t go to bed wearing damp undies. Dean gets fresh pair from the filing cabinet that’s been repurposed as his dresser and stops. He can’t change without Cas seeing anything and he’s really not comfortable with that.

_(Dean?)_

Shit. He wasn’t really hiding those feelings from the kin-connection. Dean shuffles his feet and glances up at where Cas is watching him closely. _(Can you turn around for a minute?)_

 _(Why?)_ He’s frowning and the confusion is just making Dean more uncomfortable. Would it kill Cas to just listen to him this once?

 _(Coz’ I don’t want you to see me naked, geeze. Just turn around.)_ He gestures with his hand.

Cas only blinks at him. _(I don’t understand.)_

Fuck, of course he doesn’t. He rubs his hand over his face and mumbles a few key swear words. _(Of course you don’t. You’re always naked.)_ Something he tries not to think about. _(Just turn around and I’ll… I’ll try to explain the concept of nakedness to a guy who’s constantly naked. Yeah, that’ll work over well… I’m going to stop thinking about being naked now.)_ Naked thoughts about Cas are just not very good. Especially not with what he’d been thinking about yesterday in the shower. He should really stop thinking in general, in case something slips out into the kin-connection and Cas finds out that Dean was more or less fantasizing about sex with a human version of him.

Cas glares at him around the confusion and the next bite of fish before he turns around. They discuss what clothes are all about while Dean changes. It’s hard to explain that clothes cover private bits without actually thinking about what those specific bits look like. And of course it’s the one part of the conversation that Cas clues in on and he’s like a dog with a bone, refusing to let it go.

 _(Can I get Sam to explain that? Please. Coz’ I really don’t want to.)_ He really, _really_ doesn’t. His brain already went to the bad place about Cas once, he doesn’t want it to do it again. And talking about what’s hidden under a person’s pants is not helping to separate Cas from sex in his head.

_(I don’t have the connection with Sam. If he’s willing, I can try when he gets here.)_

Fuck. No. That is _not_ jealousy starting to boil in the pit of his stomach. Cas isn’t _his_. He doesn’t have some kind of monopoly on Cas and the kin-connection. It’s all kinds of selfish to want to be the only person – being special enough to be the only one who Cas talks to. Cas’s irritation is pulsing into his head and Dean knows that it’s because he’s refusing to answer.

He flops on the bed and curls up on his side with his back to Cas as he pulls the blanket over his shoulder. Dean forces himself not to think of anything and the whole time Cas is fucking _radiating_ annoyance at him. It takes a long time for him to gather the courage to force images through the kin-connection at him. It’s just a no name man and woman but Cas is ridiculously – maybe even a little perversely – excited over looking at them.

And then Cas wants _more_ and Dean’s heart nearly fucking stops. What he gave wasn’t enough. Cas wants a _closer look_ and Dean pulls his pillow over his head. _(Holy fuck. No way in hell. Eat your fish. I’m going to sleep.)_

Cas pokes and pokes and prods and Dean keeps refusing. _(Cas! That is talk for the_ scientists _not for the mechanics. Seriously just stop and let me sleep. Please!)_ Dean whines, begs even, but he doesn’t fucking care. He just wants this to stop.

Disapproval trickles into his head, but Cas’s thoughts pull away slowly. _(Fine. Sleep well, Dean.)_

Thank you baby back home. Now he can get some rest and stop thinking about naked Cas. _Hah_.


	6. Useless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 4.**

He will not be jealous of his little brother. He will _not_ be _jealous_ of his little brother.

Maybe if he repeats that constantly, Dean won’t spend his whole shower stewing over how Cas is going to be poking around inside Sam’s head. It’s not that Cas is going to be _in_ Sam’s head that’s rubbing his fur the wrong way, it’s that _Cas_ is going to be in _Sam’s_ head. And no matter how he says that, it just makes him sound like the biggest douchebag to ever come off the production line.

There’s no way that he can just keep Cas to himself like that. Cas is probably used to talking to lots of people and Dean being selfish because he likes the special feeling of being the only person that an actual _mermaid_ talks to is… Well, it’s not very _good_. It’s beyond ‘douchebag’ level and could quite possibly be skirting the edges of a level of asshole-ish-ness where Alistiar has taken up a cozy residence.

It’s a place he would very much like to not be.

Dean slams the door to the shower room and completely ignores the odd stares he gets from the other few occupants. He walks right past Meg and her too small towel and too amused grin as she leaves. And he may or may not actually have thrown his clothes and shaving kit down on the counter. Judging by how the kit actually ricochets off the clothes and the wall and hits the floor, the odds are laying heavily in favour of him having actually thrown them.

He makes his gums bleed during the bit-too-vicious teeth cleaning and Dean won’t lie to himself. Yes, he liked feeling special. No, he can’t keep Cas to himself. Yes, they need to find a way to get him the hell out of here and back to where he belongs because Jesus fucking Christ, Cas isn’t a fish. He’s not an animal to be locked up in a cage and studied like they’re doing to him right now.

Sam’s the scientist (one who nearly creamed his pants over proof that mermaids actually even exist) and even he agrees. But how the hell are they supposed to get him out? There are cameras fucking _everywhere_ , and Dean is ninety nine point nine percent sure that those guys who are always milling about on deck are actually _guards_.

Granted, finding a mermaid is probably something really fucking big in the science world – but does it really require guards patrolling on deck and so much freaking security? Dean would almost be willing to bet that this boat has better security than the prison he’d been calling home for the last few years.

Dean dumps his clothes in a pile outside one of the shower stalls and strips down to his underpants. He realizes, belatedly, that he’s alone and the other few people have gone. Which is kind of weird. It’s not ridiculously early and it’s not too late in the morning for people to not be showering. He checks his watch just to make sure. It’s not even half past eight.  

Whatever. He’s got better things to do with his time. Like trying not to notice that there’s still that foreign not-quite-there feeling in his head. His thoughts keep circling back Cas in some way, shape or form. And right now he’s getting a little distracted by how Cas both is and isn’t in his head right now. It’s… He can still _feel_ Cas there, but not in the same way as when they’re talking.

He’s not even sure if he can call what they’re doing to communicate as ‘talking’. He’s still using his own words, English words, but a lot of what he’s ‘saying’ to Cas is with images and things he’s imagining and emotions and things. Cas is better at it, and he doesn’t use a whole lot of his own words, but when he does it throws him for a loop and he has to figure out what’s being said by what’s being mentioned around those alien words.

But it’s been almost four days since he started talking with Cas and Dean’s already addicted to the feeling. Hell, he was addicted to it two days ago. He even almost drowned himself trying to get Cas to make this kin-connection thing with him again. If asked, he’ll say it was because he didn’t want Cas to keep sulking. But if he’s being completely truthful with himself, it’s because – and he’s never going to admit this to anyone else even on pain of death – he didn’t like how quiet it was inside his own fucking head.

Dean’s thankful Cas can’t hear him right now. He would probably keel over from embarrassment if Cas knew anything about this. And he’s really, really, _really_ happy that he’s not hearing anything about what Cas and Sam might be talking about.

He turns the water on and stands awkwardly outside the stall, hands on the waistband of his boxers. If Cas set up the kin-connection with Sam, then they’re probably talking about dicks and vaginas and sex and God knows what else but it’s a subject he so doesn’t even want to think about right now. Which is kind of really hard to do when he’s about to get naked and probably beat one off in the shower.

Yesterday he’d told Cas he didn’t swing that way, but he hadn’t been exactly specific about which direction he doesn’t swing. Dean’s a pendulum that happily rocks back and forth between men and women. But he’s never – it’s not that he doesn’t think Cas isn’t hot (because holy mother of fuck _yes_ he thinks Cas is gorgeous in so many ways) – but it’s just that… Cas isn’t human. Not entirely. He is but he isn’t. He’s _different_.  

He’s throwing him off his groove. Dean likes Cas, he really does. He’s interesting beyond all reason. He’s in Dean’s head and can probably see and feel all of Dean’s shitty problems and he doesn’t hate him for it and he’s stuck around. Cas didn’t even want to drop the connection while Dean left for his shower that’s something right there that kind of makes his chest feel tighter and warmer and it’s freaking him out a little.

And he’s been standing outside the running shower for a few minutes without moving which is kind of weird even for him.

Dean steps behind the curtain and drops his boxers, kicking them aside so they won’t get wet. He sticks a hand under the spray to make sure the water hasn’t gone cold or anything. It’s just the right temperature and he’s about to step under it when he’s suddenly not so alone in his head anymore. It’s like the connection between him and Cas gets blown wide open and Dean actually staggers to one side, hitting the wall.

There’s a whole storm of thoughts and emotions ricocheting around his brain that aren’t his own and none of them are good. There’s anger and upset and _fear_ all jockeying to be the front runner and it’s making his head spin.

 _(Dean! Come back!)_ The words and images that slip through are desperate and make something behind his ribs twist. _(Dean, please!)_ He squeezes his eyes shut and images flash over the back of his eyelids. Sam bound and gagged on the floor, Alistair standing over him. Gordon pushing the mobile tank into the room, the portable x-ray set up over it. The door being shut and the lock pushed into place.

 _(Shit!)_ Rage burns away the images and Dean starts swearing, a whole slew of words that would make any old seadog blush. He barely remembers to turn the shower off before grabbing his boxers and side-hopping out of the stall – innocent bystanders be damned – while trying to get them back on. _(I’ll be there as soon as I can, Cas. Just hold on! Jesus Christ, hold on!)_

It’s hard to focus on getting his pants back on and running for the door without falling on his face. Cas keeps sending him images of what he’s seeing, and his emotions are firing all over the place. It’s not like it was yesterday, when Cas had his panic attack and all that anger was thumping into his brain. Now nothing is being forced at him, it’s just sliding through like it’s completely natural for Dean to be seeing Alistair raising the cage door like a ghostly mirage overlaying what his eyeballs are actually looking at.

He nearly walks straight into the door when he pulls it open with the full expectation that the door _will_ open. Only it doesn’t and his momentum carries him forward and he turns and his shoulder slams into it instead of his face and fucking _ow_.

“What the fuck?” Dean pulls at the door handle again and it rattles it place but doesn’t budge beyond that. It’s _locked_.

But the deadbolt’s tab is sitting in the _unlocked_ position and Dean even flips it back and forth a few times to make sure it’s not locked. He hears the click-thump of the bolt sliding back and forth and he’s certain it’s not in the locked position when he pulls again. It rattles but doesn’t move.

“What the hell!” Dean slams his fist against the door a few times before planting his foot on the wall and pulling at the handle with both hands.

He keeps having to blink away the images of the dart-gun in the water and it’s hard to shake off Cas’s panic swelling through their connection because Alistair and Gordon want his blood. Dean doesn’t know what’s wrong with the door and the more he pulls the more it just rattles in the frame. Apparently there’s more locks than just the deadbolt and someone’s gone and locked him in and that can only mean this was fucking _planned_.

“I’m going to murder them, I’m going to fucking _kill them_.” He hisses, going back for his shirt and putting that on before trying the door again.

He knows the exact moment Cas resigns himself to letting those two asshats take his blood and it makes his own curdle in his veins. Cas is angry and scared and he’s sticking his arm out of the water for them to stick a needle under his skin – something that’s probably never actually happened to him before – and Dean is fucking _livid_. His shoulder is probably going to bruise with how hard he keeps throwing himself at the door and he doesn’t really care that it opens in instead of out because this is all he can really think of doing.

 _(Dean!)_ Cas is fucking _screaming_ in his head and Dean almost goes to his knees, reeling from something like a shockwave of horror that crashes through him and makes his heart go into triple time.

They fucking _dosed_ Cas with a paralytic. He’s going to bury those fuckwads six feet deep and piss on their gravestones for this. Cas’s panic goes through the roof and Dean can’t see straight with that searing his synapses. When they actually start dragging Cas out of the tank and he actually can’t _breathe_ , Dean starts shouting for someone to let him out and pounding his fist against it.

Azazel’s oil-slick voice slips through the cracks and Dean has to really strain to hear it over Cas and the rush of his own blood in his ears. “Sorry princess, no can do. Orders are orders, you know?”

He’s not getting anything Cas is seeing anymore, but something happens – and he’d give his left leg to know _what_ – that has Cas begging for him, for Sam, for water so he can fucking breathe. His anxiety is feeding into Dean’s own and he doesn’t know what to _do_.

 _(Cas!)_ He closes his eyes and concentrates and he tries to reach through and calm Cas down but he’s not calm himself so he’s not really surprised that it does nothing. _(Azazel locked me in the bathroom. Fuck Cas, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.)_

Dean is so fucking _useless_. Cas is suffocating and Azazel won’t let him out and Alistair and Gordon are – fuck he doesn’t even _know_ what they’re doing but if Cas is hurt, if he dies, Dean will feed them piece by fucking piece to sharks. And to make it all worse, he can actually _feel_ Cas slipping further and further away the longer he’s out of the water.

He slumps against the door and looks around the bathroom for something – anything – that he can use to break the door down. The benches are bolted to the floor and he doubts throwing a mirror at it will do much good. He could try and pry the pins out of the hinges, but he’d need something to wedge between the metal to even get it up and all he has is his shaving kit and the clothes on his back and –

Something happens. He’s not sure what and it’s driving him crazy to not know, but suddenly Cas’s thoughts are getting clearer. The connection between them is still weak, like it’s coming through a soup strainer first and it’s pissing Dean off. He wants that alien light to pulse bright inside his head again and he’s not sure he even knows how.

Dean focuses on that buzz in his brain that belongs to Cas and he pulls at it. He imagines it like little wispy ribbons and he’s grabbing those ribbons and pulling them closer and making them real. He forces his thoughts along those ribbons, up and out and hopefully into Cas’s head. _(Cas, buddy, you still with me? You okay?)_

The feelings he gets back are stunned and confused. _(Dean. I – Dean. I can… breathe?)_

Relief floods through him and Dean sags heavily against the door. Thank the ever loving creator of pie, Cas is okay. He’s going to be fine – except he’ll probably be scarred beyond reason thanks to those asswipes fucking _violating_ him with their tests. It doesn’t change that Dean still needs to get out of here and he needs to do it now before Alistair decides he wants more than just blood samples and x-rays.

He looks around the room again, eyeing his pile of clean clothes and his shaving kit still haphazardly stacked next to the shower stall. He could try and use the razor, but he’s more likely going to slice open his fingers before he’ll ever manage to wedge one of the blades under the pin. He’d need a bigger blade with a grip, something like his pocket kni –

His fucking pocket knife.

Dean practically dives on his jeans and if they weren’t such a hardy fabric he might have actually torn them with his particularly vicious search of the pockets. If he’s lucky, if he actually did it last night before everything that happened with Cas, then they should be – _hell yes_. His pocket knife is in the pocket and everything is glorious.

He abandons the rest of his stuff – he can get it later – and runs back to the door. Dean thumbs the blade out and sets to work on the bottom hinge first. Cas is only half sharing what’s going on and every little half-there image and thought is cranking Dean’s anger up another notch. Alistair did something to Cas’s tail and Gordon’s taking his blood and Dean’s going to take both their heads for this.

They’ve violated Cas, hogtied his brother and locked him in the bathroom. God help them if Sammy is actually hurt in anyway.

Dean manages to pry the first pin up about half an inch before he can get a decent enough grip on it to pull it out. The middle pin is easy enough. But the top hinge is a little more difficult, since the damn thing is practically eye level but he gets that out by the time Cas is freaking about them x-raying his stomach.

It takes a bit of shaking the handle like earlier to make the door bounce back enough for him to get the knife between the metal edge and the door jamb. One crowbar-esque push-pull and the door pops out and Dean lets it hit the floor with the biggest damn bang. Azazel is standing against the other wall, hands in his pockets and the stupidest slack-jawed look on his face as he stares down at the door.

“Try and stop me, I dare you.”

Azazel’s eyes go from the door to the knife and he holds up his hands. “I’ve done by job. Go be the hero for all I care.”

Dean closes the blade and pockets the knife. Azazel keeps true to his word. He doesn’t stop him from sprinting for the door and he definitely doesn’t follow him up the stairs to the next floor. Which is all fine and good because he’s already been yelled at once for punching someone out and he doesn’t want to have to sit in Lilith’s over done, perfumed office for another lecture about not touching her favourite meatpuppets.

Of course the goddamn door turns out to be fucking _locked._ But he knew that because Cas showed him that. He’d seen it in his own goddamn head from a floor away and yes, that is never going to stop being fucking _awesome._

He swipes his card to make the autolock pop. He knows exactly where on the door the slide-lock is. It’s about chest height and he’s got about twenty seconds before the deadbolt clicks back into the place. First Dean tries throwing his shoulder into the door a couple times, but the damn thing is heavy and it hurts like hell. If he keeps this up, he’s likely to dislocate his shoulder.

The lock clicks and he has to swipe his card again. This time he tries kicking it. He’s got to step back and draw his knee to his chest to get the leverage he needs, but a few solid kicks and that weak ass little slide-lock on the other side snap. Specifically, it’s the piece it slides into on the wall that gives but none of that matters because Sam is on his stomach and his arms are behind his back and he’s red in the face around a goddamn _gag_.

And Cas is stretched out on the other side of the tank and the paralytic they put in his veins – did they even stop to think whether or not he might be allergic to it or it could fucking kill him? – doesn’t even let him turn his head. Dean can see him looking at him out of the corner of his eye and for the first time since Dean tried to take his shower, Cas actually feels _relief_.

That sends something warm tripping through his stomach but he’s still seeing red. These sons of bitches dared to attack his friend and worst of all they tied up his little brother. Every ounce of anger vibrating through his bones comes out in his voice as he stomps into the room.

“Alistair! Gordon!”


	7. Right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 6.**

If there’s one good thing Dean can say about Lilith, it’s that she doesn’t skimp on the food. Everything is top notch in the cafeteria. They’re on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean somewhere off the coast of Africa and they’re getting a goddamn siesta-fiesta menu tonight. He’s crossing his fingers that Cas will like – and be able to handle – the ground beef and cheese and soft taco shell. Dean had to dial back on all the extra toppings (like the jalapenos and onions and all the shit that make it extra _delicious)_ , just to spare Cas all the gastric distress. And that was only after he’d been given a fifteen minute lecture from Sam, Jess _and_ Meg.

It’s a bit of a chore balancing five boxes of food going down the stairs while people are still coming up. He would only have to carry four if fucking _Meg_ hadn’t absolutely _insisted_ that she stick around. Far as Dean knows, Cas doesn’t give two fishy-shits about her so he doesn’t understand even slightly why she’s still hanging around. It should just be him, Cas, Sam and Jess enjoying a quiet meal while giving Lilith the big ol’ middle finger for feeding Cas something right in front of her precious security cameras.

Anger still prickles painful under his skin and the styrofoam containers creak ominously when his fingers flex. Sam had told him what Lilith had said. She called Cas a fucking _possession_. She’d ranted and raved about how she _owned_ him and that he was going to do what she said whether he liked it or not. Cas had been a goddamn champ about the whole thing and essentially told her to go screw herself – not that Dean had been there to see or hear it.

But _damn_ he’d bet some good money that Cas had been straight up unflappable James Bond about it or something. He definitely seems the type. And Dean had been right there in his head after – just before Cas cut him out. He’d felt Cas’s own rage, and disgust and his refusal to let Lilith push him around. Cas is in a fucking _cage_ and he’s still not taking any of Lilith’s shit.

A mythological creature made real, gorgeous as all get out, _and_ a badass. Is there anything not perfect about Cas?

Well, maybe not _perfect_. It was a dumbass move to piss off Lilith like that. The boat is her little dictatorship and she’s the one with the forces and the ammo and all the control. All Cas has on his side is himself, Dean, Sam and Jess. And to a lesser extent, Bobby and Pam. There are guards with guns and everyone is under her thumb.

It rubs Dean the wrong way that there’s nearly nothing he can actually _do_. It’s a creeping itch under his skin, pricking at his bones. He’s brought a knife to a gun fight, literally. And if Cas isn’t careful, Lilith could do – God, Dean doesn’t even know what she could do. Alistair has all sorts of creepy experiments he wants to try on Cas. He wants all kinds of samples and after how Cas had freaked at just the x-rays, Dean really fucking doubts he’d be happy with anything else.

And now that Dean has had the chance to calm down after his initial outburst , he’s moved right on into having a quiet panic attack about what would happen if Lilith did get pissed off enough to punish Cas by separating him from what few friends he’s made. He hates the thought of Cas being owned by anyone probably just as much as Cas does, but the way Cas has been so… so… _restless_ all day is freaking him out.

It’s been hours since Lilith left. Hell, it’s been half a fucking day, and Cas has done practically nothing but swim in circles without even so much as _looking_ at anyone. He started swimming in weird patterns that made no sense to anyone but him back and forth around the tank, but that had lasted maybe an hour before he started looking too frustrated with it and went back to doing laps.

It might have been a bit of a creeper thing to do, but once he’d calmed down, Dean kinda just sat on his bed and watched Cas. Well, he wasn’t really _watching_ Cas. It was more like he stared at the tank that Cas happened to be swimming circles in. If he, maybe, focused on Cas and the way his body rolled through the water all slim slip-stream muscle and scales and rippling fans with a grace no human could ever hope to have… well… that was purely accidental.

Mostly, Dean had spent the last several hours _thinking_ (and maybe a little napping on and off). And with his hangover from last night and the headache he always gets after those goddamn nightmares, thinking wasn’t exactly one of the things he wanted to do. But it was what _needed_ to be done. And it was one of the only ways to make it not so quiet in his head – like how it usually is without Cas and the kin-connection there.

 It just doesn’t feel _right_ having Cas locked up. He’s a living, breathing, thinking, feeling _person_ and everyone else – except the few people on this boat who actually have a shred of humanity in them – can’t seem to fucking see it.

Anyone who’s heard him sing should fucking know it. No whale or dolphin or whatever has ever sung a song like what Dean heard before he actually met Cas and you’d think that would turn on the proverbial lightbulb for some people, but no. Lilith and her crew have to be the most ignorant sons of bitches Dean’s ever met.

And he was in _prison_. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs when his time behind bars is looking better than the situation he currently finds himself in.

So it looks like it’s left to him – and Sam, if he can manage to get over the fact that discovering mermaids is a marine biologists wet dream or something – to figure out a way to get Cas out of his cage and back into the ocean. Sam hasn’t spent as much time with Cas in his head as Dean has, so maybe he hasn’t felt it as much and maybe Cas isn’t aware of it or something, but there’s always something pushing under Cas’s thoughts. It took a while to figure out, but Dean did eventually realize that it’s _longing_.

Cas is constantly pining after the sea and his family and it’s fucking _heartbreaking_. Dean can barely stand feeling what little bit of it that he gets through the mind meld of the kin-connection. It’s hard to imagine what Cas might actually be feeling. And Dean understands that craving for freedom. For him it’s the open road with the wind whipping around his baby while he’s got some old rock playing on the radio. For Cas it’s the voices of his family and the cool waters of his home.

Dean has to balance the five containers of food in one hand while fishing his damn swipe card out of his pocket. As if keeping Cas behind bars isn’t bad enough, they’ve got to keep his room locked up too. Who the hell is going to steal him? Christ. Lilith is one paranoid, crazy bitch and the sooner Cas gets free and they get home and he never has to see Lilith again, the better. And Dean is totally, one hundred percent, trying really fucking hard to not think about all the consequences that will be coming his way for doing that.

He nudges the door open with his foot and hip-checks it the rest of the way, quickly transferring some of the take-out containers back into his other hand. Dean manages one step into the room before he loses basically every thought process currently occupying his brain. He stops and stares down at what is probably one of the most unexpected sights he has ever seen – and that includes that one time he walked in on Sam and Ruby feeling each other up in Bobby’s laundry room.

Cas is half curled in front of the tank, leaning forward on his hands and glaring up at Dean like he’s the reason behind global warming and deforestation. Those ribbed fins on his back and the ones on the sides of his head flare wide and Cas actually fucking _hisses_ at him, flashing those killer fangs of his and making Dean’s blood run cold.

“Move, Dean!”

Jesus Christ, this is an escape attempt. Cas is trying to _escape_. But there’s no fucking way he’s going to be able to make it out on his own. He needs the swipe cards to get into the stairwell and out into the cafeteria. Then he’s got to get through that – passed who knows how many people – and out onto the deck where there are honest to God actual _guards_ before he’ll even get to smell the sea. And that’s not even mentioning the fucking _cameras_. He’d be stopped before he even got to the stairs.

Fuck. That’s not fair. Cas wants out and Dean wants to get him out but there’s just too much shit in the way. He needs a better plan than dragging himself across the floor. And shit, Dean just wants to pick him up and carry him out. He wants to do something _right_ for once in his goddamn life.

He’s kinda struck dumb by the sight and it’s movement behind Cas that makes him look up. Meg is half kneeling, half leaning against the tank with a hand to her head. She looks like she got knocked down and took either the table, the wall, or the floor to the noggin. Past her, Sam is sitting against the wall making his scrunched I’m-fine-it-only-hurts-a-little face while Jess is peeling the sleeve of his lab coat back.

A sleeve that’s soaked through with red.

It’s not that big a leap to figure out that Cas hurt Sam. Dean clenches his teeth and his hands shake slightly. Nobody hurts his little brother, _nobody_. He understands that Cas is probably desperate to get out – if his restlessness all day is any kind of flashing neon hint – but _he hurt Sam_. And he’s going about this in all the wrong ways.

The to-go containers hit the floor and Dean doesn’t even lament it slightly. Only a couple of them crack open so the rest are still edible and as much as he loves food it really isn’t even slightly important right now. What’s important is making sure that Cas doesn’t hurt himself or anyone else. If he keeps this up, Alistair or – God forbid – _Lilith_ will come in and rain fire and brimstone on their little parade.

It only takes a few steps to reach him and Cas’s eyes go wide. He hisses again, shouting at Dean not to touch him, and slides back as if he’s going to be able to rise up on his tail like snakes do. He doesn’t get the chance before Dean is on him, grabbing for his wrists. It takes a few swipes before he gets a good grip and he’s fucking _lucky_ he doesn’t get clawed to ribbons.

Cas ends up on his back and he’s struggling like all get out. He’s worse than Sammy was every time he got sick and Dean had to sit on his chest and force the doctor prescribed medicine down his throat. Dean isn’t entirely sure how it happened, but he ends up straddling Cas’s hips while he’s thrashing. He hears the chairs get knocked over by the wicked whip of his tail as Cas starts going ballistic under him, his caudal fin slapping at the tank and the floor.

Dean is barely able to hang on. He’s nearly unseated several times by the bucking roll of Cas’s body and it’s a goddamn _miracle_ that he manages to get Cas’s wrists pinned by his shoulders. His original attempts to get them down by his sides turned out fruitless beyond all reason. Cas is practically screaming, his voice breaking on every other word he keeps shouting out in his own language. His fingers keep curling and if Dean was holding any higher up on his wrists, he’d have some nice gashes to go along with Sam’s.

It takes a few attempts to get enough of a breath to manage out a single “Cas, stop!” while trying to keep his place over him. Cas’s back arches and Dean damn near loses his seat. Instead of just kneeling, he drops his full weight on Cas’s hips and thanks his lucky stars when someone finally helps. He’s not sure who it is – he doesn’t have the time to look back and see – but someone drops down on Cas’s tail to keep it pinned.

“No!” Cas only squirms more. “ _No!_ ”

This is the worst. Dean half wishes that Cas would be in his head right now so he could beg for him to stop, to calm down long enough to simply _listen_. But Cas’s emotions would rip his brain apart before he could say anything.

There’s an ‘oomph!’ behind him and the wriggling of Cas’s tail across the floor comes almost to a complete stop. He’s still tugging ineffectively to get his arms free and his breathing is all over the place. Dean takes the risk and slides forward until he’s sitting more on Cas’s stomach than his hips and he puts more weight on his arms. It only serves to make Cas struggle harder and there are fucking _tears_ squeezing out the corners of his eyes and it’s making Dean’s chest feel six sizes too small to see the streaks on Cas’s cheeks.

“Calm down, Cas!” He’s practically begging here, but he doesn’t care. Dean just wants Cas to _stop_. “Christ, _calm down!_ ”

He’s more than slightly surprised when Cas actually slows. He’s still rolling his wrists, trying to worm out of Dean’s grip. And his head keeps rocking side to side. His body stops first, but his chest is heaving and each breath sounds so fucking painful that Dean’s lungs twinge in sympathy. Cas tries a few more useless presses against Dean’s hands before going completely limp.

Dean almost sighs in relief, but his breath catches in his throat when Cas turns his face to look at him. He’s all watery, red-rimmed blue eyes, tear streaked cheeks and quivering lips, and he’s staring up at Dean like he’s surprised by what he sees. The look only lasts a moment before Cas’s expression crumples and he tilts his head back.

He closes his eyes to the words Cas squeezes out around a sob. “Home! Please, Dean, _please!_ ”

God, that pain beating hard in his chest might actually be Dean’s heart breaking. He knows that Cas doesn’t like baring his throat. It had taken a whole lot of trust in Dean to get Cas to tilt back for something as simple as a shave. And now Cas is admitting _defeat_. He lost and he’s pinned and he’s fucking _begging_ on choked breaths for Dean to get let go, to let him go home.

He can only stand to hear a few more gasping, quiet sobs before his self-control slips. He can’t take it, knowing Cas is hurting and there’s nothing he can do for it right now. Dean wants to dry Cas’s tears and chuck him overboard so he can be free – but there are so many fucking obstacles in their way even though the ocean is right there on the other side of the wall. He can’t get Cas free without a plan, and he’s got a few of them kicking about in his brain that he just needs to talk to Sam and the others about because he’ll need their help for it.

All he has right now, though, is himself. All he can give Cas is comfort and a shoulder to cry on because Cas needs this outlet. He needs to let out everything he’s been holding back these last several days because Dean knows, he _knows_ , what it’s like to be locked up against your will and kept from your family. He at least had visiting hours and other people around. Cas is in a whole different world and that has to be fucking _terrifying_.

Cas’s eyes pop open in surprise and his sobs cut off sharply when Dean lets go. He sits back across what he guesses would be considered Cas’s lap and scoops Cas up against his chest. Dean folds his arms around Cas’s shoulders and back and pushes one hand into the damp curling hair at the back of his neck.

He doesn’t need Sam’s upset shout to know that this is the stupidest thing he could do right now. All it would take for Cas to rip his jugular out is to turn his head, and lift his chin a bit. Or he could shred Dean’s back to ribbons with a few quick twists of his hands. He’s leaving himself wide open for Cas to do anything to him, _again_.

And, to be completely honest, he doesn’t give a shit.

Dean presses his nose into Cas’s drying hair and his lips keep brushing Cas’s forehead with every word. “I’m sorry, Cas. I’m so fucking sorry. If I could, I would. I really would. But I don’t know _how_.” He’s got so many different ways he could get him out, but there’s a ton of research and reconnaissance that needs to be done before he can do anything. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m _sorry_.”

He doesn’t stop whispering  apologies. Not when Cas is just leaning against his chest, not when he sucks in a sharp breath, and another, and another. Not when Cas’s shoulders start to shake and he reaches up slowly to fold his fingers into the to back of his shirt. Dean doesn’t stop when Cas presses his face hard against his chest and loses himself in full-body sobs that force Dean to squeeze his eyes shut or risk crying himself.

He sits like that, his knees aching on the floor and Cas a line of cool curled against his front for longer than he cares to count. Cas doesn’t stop crying. The tears might have ended, but painful dry sobs are still making him shake. Cas keeps mumbling against his collarbone, begging in broken words and pleas for his home and his family.

Dean doesn’t really see Meg clean up the mess he made dropping their meals. He doesn’t look up as Sam bitches and moans about the antiseptic Jess uses from the first-aid kit to clean his arm and bandage it. He doesn’t really move at all until his knees start hurting too much and he shifts. Cas clings tighter, arms squeezing around Dean’s chest.

It’s a little bit of a challenge to slide to one side without letting Cas go. He ends up with his back against the tank and Cas stretched out between his legs. The position is a bit too uncomfortable and maybe more than just a little sexual and Dean can practically feel his thoughts switching tracks and that is just a no-go zone right now.

He’s been fighting thinking about Cas like that for the last few days and it’s getting really, _really_ hard. Especially when Cas is all lithe muscle and skin and he’s naked twenty-four seven and completely unabashed about it. It’s not like he hasn’t fantasized about mermaids before – what kid hasn’t after watching The Little Mermaid and realizing they swim around in nothing but fucking _bras_? – but it’s still weird to be not even really noticing anymore that Cas doesn’t even have legs, or ears, or a belly button for that matter.

Dean isn’t even really aware that that it’s scales his fingers are slipping over as he drags Cas up into his lap, pulling his tail so that it’s over his right leg and not between them. He props his legs up, knees bent so that Cas is angled better against his chest. It pushes Cas up until his face, still damp from tears, is pressed into the side of Dean’s neck.

Cas sniffles and shifts until he’s comfortable. His tail bends and curls, slipping under Dean’s knee and back over his head. It’s a little weird to have Cas literally wrapped around him, considering the most they’ve touched so far is when Dean lifted him back into the tank after the fuck up with Alistair and Gordon the other day. But right now none of that really matters.

What’s important is giving Cas what he can right now. He can’t give him his freedom – not yet – yet but he can give him comfort. If it means holding him while he cries out all his frustrations, then that’s what he’ll do. The last time he had to do this was with his ex, Cassie – hell of a coincidence there – when she found out her dad had cancer.

It’s not that he’s uncomfortable, because he’s not. Hell, he’s almost too comfortable. Dean’s got no problems with physical contact. Hell, he’s usually more than happy to participate in a post-coital cuddle. But this is most definitely not post-coital situation and he should probably be a little freaked out with how… not wrong it feels to have Cas curled up against him like this.

It shouldn’t feel entirely too normal to be running his fingers through Cas’s hair and down his back between his dorsal fins in soothing strokes. It shouldn’t be making him feel all warm and squiggy in his chest like his insides are a gooey caramel center.  But it does. It really, really does. Cas’s hand on his shoulder and the other in the small of his back. His cheek against his neck,  Dean’s hand over his side. Everything just feels… not weird.

He’s not going to say ‘ _right’_ because ‘right’ doesn’t happen to him. It did once, with Cassie, and that was that. The chances of it ever happening again – and with a fucking _fin-kin_ no less – are zero to none.

Dean is too lost in his thoughts and the mindless run of his hand over Cas’s back to notice when Meg comes back with his laundry and a ton of towels. Or when she leaves again with Jess. He doesn’t pay attention when Sam tucks the towels around them or sits down with a bucket. He does make a face when his jeans get soaked while Sam spoons water over Cas’s tail, but it’s another sacrifice he’s more than willing to make at the moment.

Cas needs this. He needs this and Dean will give it to him. If it means never having to see Cas look so hopeless, if it means never having to hear him cry like that again, then he’ll give Cas anything he needs for as long as he’s here.


	8. Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 7.**

“You’re going to corrupt a fin-kin.”

Sam looks so serious about it that Dean couldn’t stop himself from laughing even if he wanted to. He grins at Sam and turns the same smile, with a hint of imp-ishness, to Cas. “You don’t mind, do you? I bet you guys have a bunch of innuendos. You’ll have to show me some.” It’s going to probably be the closest thing he’ll ever get to dirty talking with Cas, so he might as well take what he can, right?

But all Cas gives him now is a tilted head, a frown, and a whole bunch of confusion in the kin-connection. When Cas’s attention shifts to Sam, Dean knows that they’re talking with the mind meld too. Through Cas he knows that it’s something about explaining what innuendos are and that’s all Dean really needs to know about what’s being shared between them. Really, the more interesting thing is how Cas’s eyes go a little bit wider, he actually fucking _blushes,_ and he ducks his head. Dean’s staring and he knows it, but it’s such an interesting reaction to just the mention of innuendos – how the hell isn’t he supposed to stare at that?

Except for when a mammoth smacks you. It’s really hard to not pay attention to Sam when he’s physically assaulting you with the bitch-face from the lost lagoon plastered all over his face. “Don’t tease him. He’s…” His voice drops to a whisper and Dean leans in to hear the last thing he expected Sam to ever say about Cas. “He’s a virgin, Dean.”

No way. Absolutely not. There is no way Cas could be as awesome as he is and look like _that_ and be a – no. Dean doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t believe it for all of the two seconds it takes to look back at Cas and practically want to wince himself for how embarrassed he looks, blushing harder than before. _Oh_.

Dean has to force up a few walls just to keep his thoughts from spilling out into the kin-connection. Just like how he forces his expression to stay blank. He’s pretty sure that if either Sam or Cas saw or felt the weirdly maniacal _glee_ he can feel bubbling up in his chest, he’d be in more trouble than he’d know what to do with.

“Oh.” He shrugs, because it’s totally cool that Cas is a virgin. Dean’s got nothing against them and if anything he fucking _loves_ that little bit of news. He might even jump up and click his heels over it. Or he would if he wasn’t playing it low key. “That’s cool, I guess. To each their own.”

And then it hits him.

“Wait.” He turns to look at Sam, trying to keep the suspicious glare-of-doom that wants to claw its way onto his face. “How the heck do you know Cas is a virgin?”

“He told me.”

Well he sure as fuck didn’t tell Dean. Not that he ever asked, but _still_ – isn’t he closer with Cas than Sam is? Why wouldn’t Cas tell him something like that? Maybe Sam is reading into this more than it actually is. Maybe Cas didn’t share something that personal with him instead of with Dean. “He _told_ you?”

Sam shrugs and shoves a giant hand through his stupid hair and Dean just kind of wants to shake him right now. Don’t procrastinate an answer, just _tell him_. “Sorta.” He starts shifting like he’s got to go take a piss and there is no way in hell that Dean is letting him leave with a frikken ‘sorta’ hanging in the air like that. For Sam’s sake, he better give a better answer than that.

It’s more of a relief than it should be when Sam continues. “We were talking about how they mate and he was… well, when I pointed out that humans have sex for fun too, instead of for just procreation, I asked if he’s ever done it for fun and he reacted like…” He gestures toward Cas. “Kinda like that.”

“Oh.” It is kind of the biggest telltale sign Dean’s ever seen.

“Yeah, well, talk to him about it. Not me.” Sam actually damn near _pushes_ him out of the way to get out the door. “Jess is waiting. I’ll see you both tomorrow. Good night, Castiel.”

“Good night, Sam.” Cas’s stupid voice sends shivers down Dean’s spine.

Even though he fully accepts and believes that Cas is a virgin, he tacks Cas’s voice onto the list of reasons there’s no way he could be one. It’s an outright _sin_ that someone hasn’t gotten to hear what he sounds like on the verge of an orgasm. And Dean is going to carefully not think about what it would be like to get to be the first person to do any of the downright perverse things flickering through his head behind the walls where Cas can’t see what he’s thinking. The fact that Cas probably doesn’t even like dudes – let alone _humans_ – doesn’t even occur to him. Or it sort of does, but Dean doesn’t care. Fantasies can stay fantasies and if he wants to daydream about what it would be like to kiss Cas senseless and figure out all the good ways to make him scream, then he’ll damn well waste countless hours jerking off to them.

It’s right around the time that the door swings shut that he gets slapped across the face with a horrible realization. One that makes bile rise in the back of his throat and turns his mood south. If they don’t get Cas out of here, then Cas is never going to get to have any of that. He’s going to live out his life in Lilith’s tank never knowing what it’s like to get to touch or kiss or _feel_ anyone and that’s – that’s not fucking fair. It pisses Dean right the hell off because unless celibacy is what someone chooses, then they shouldn’t be denied getting to have that – _especially_ because they’re going to be locked up in a fucking cage like a goddamn _pet_.

Dean shoves his hand through his hair. All his good feelings are gone. Even the ones that weren’t exactly _good_ – like getting to hold Cas earlier, or not-quite-fantasizing about being the first person to touch Cas. Everything is gone and now he’s just this great big ball of _rage_. None of which he’s going to let Cas feel.

Studies say you shouldn’t go to bed angry, but there’s nothing better to do and Cas is fully expecting them to go to bed soon. If he deviates from that, Cas is going to know something is up and that’s – fuck. Why? This is such fucking _bullshit_. Everything that Lilith is doing, Sam for being the one who caught Cas in the first place (even if he regrets the hell out of that), Cas for – for – for fucking with Dean’s mind and making him think things about him that he has no right thinking for someone who isn’t even of the same frikken species.

He’s halfway undone his pants, shoes kicked off already, by the time Cas speaks again.

_(Dean?)_

Don’t look, don’t look. There’s every chance that Cas will see how fucking angry he is. _(Yeah?)_

_(Is everything okay?)_

_(It’s fine, Cas.)_ Lying through his goddamn teeth. There is nothing about anything that’s happened in the last few days that is _fine_.

With his sudden silence, Dean really shouldn’t be surprised by all the little anxieties that Cas lets spill into the kin-connection. He’s thinking he did something wrong – that Dean is pissed at him for what happened earlier, for the breakdown and falling asleep on him, for being a virgin. Fuck, none of that is true. Cas is wrong, so wrong and that just frustrates Dean more because Cas hasn’t done anything to deserve any of this and Dean doesn’t know what to fucking _do_. All he knows is that he can’t let Cas keep feeling like that – even if it means letting down the walls so he can feel all Dean’s anger.

Cas pulls away from it like Dean’s fury is aimed at him. Dean knows that Cas knows that it’s not, but it still hurts. It still dulls the edges of that anger just a bit because it’s scaring Cas and Dean hates scaring him. There’s already so much unknown stuff around him to be freaking him out that he doesn’t need Dean and his anger management issues on top if it all.

But he’s still so fucking _pissed_. How could Lilith even – why is everyone so – It makes him want to _scream_. The best he can do is throw his shirt on the bed and slam the side of his fist into the side of the filing cabinet. Pain spikes up his arm and the cabinet tilts dangerously up on one edge. He brings his hand down on top of it to level it out again, but now the side of his hand is tingling and he’s dropping swears like they’re going out of style.

He nearly flinches when Cas unexpectedly reaches through the kin-connection with a whole _sea_ of calm. Cas’s mental-touch soothes all the ragged edges of Dean’s thoughts and he’s like some kind of freaking alien lighthouse on the edge of his mind, guiding him back to a measure of peace. In between ever smooth touch, there’s a little wave of confusion and want. The want to comfort him like Dean did Cas earlier and Dean doesn’t even need the kin-connection to know what the confusion is all about. Cas hasn’t the first idea what’s pissing Dean off.

Dean snaps. _(Lilith is! You’re not an animal and she’s keeping you locked up in here like one. And when she gets home, she’s just got a bigger, fancier cage for you and it’s just not fucking_ fair _, Cas! You’ve never even –)_ Kissed, fucked, loved? _(- and if we can’t figure out how to get you out, you won’t ever and that’s just –)_ No. Not going to happen. _(There’s no way I’m letting you die a virgin, Cas.)_ Not exactly the thought he was going for, but close enough.

The last thing he’s expecting from Cas right now is amusement tickling along the ribbons between their heads. _(Dean, you’re being ridiculous.)_

 _(I am not!)_ He turns around to glare at Cas, but he gets a big caught up in the little ghost of a smile in the corners of Cas’s mouth.

_(Yes, you are. You’re upset that I haven’t experienced the pleasures of the flesh and you’re worried I never will.)_

Still not a bulls-eye, but definitely close to the mark. It’s far enough off that Dean is almost embarrassed by it and he can’t even look at Cas. He might as well keep playing along like he’s pissed Cas might never get to have fun. It’s only have the reason, but it’s still better than having to explain he’s emotions. He’s never been very good at that.

 _(Yeah, well, sex is awesome. Everyone should get to experience it at least once and it’s a damn_ shame _that you haven’t.)_ He chances another glance back at Cas, well aware that he can feel his ears starting to burn with a blush. Cas has his chin on his arms and he’s watching him.

Dean feels that little twist in his chest and flip in his stomach that he’s been feeling every time that he looks at Cas lately and the questions pop to the forefront of his thoughts before he can stop it. _(How come you’ve never done it? Are you too young? Or… uh, do fin-kin think you’re, y’know, not attractive or something? I mean, by our standards – if we can get past all the fans, gills, and those crazy teeth of yours – you’re not bad to look at.)_

He kinda meant to have that be a compliment at some point. But Cas just frowns, sighs, and looks at the floor. _(Do you want me to answer in order?)_

 _(If you want to.)_ He didn’t really mean to ask so many questions, so he kinda regrets it a little. But he’s curious and he knows he might have hurt Cas’s feelings or something. _(You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.)_

Fuck, Dean’s even playing with the edge of the blanket like a shy little school boy or something. There are better things to do, like pulling on his shirt and smoothing out the wrinkles. It’s a good distraction until Cas’s thoughts force themselves quiet too. As soon as Dean looks up, Cas does that weird blink-look-away thing like he doesn’t want to get caught looking.

_(I’m not young. I’ve been an adult for many seasons. And no, I am not considered unattractive.)_

Anyone with a set of eyes could have confirmed that.

Cas traces of the edge of the glass wall of his tank. _(My nest-brothers thought I was weird for not showing any interest in finding a mate. I was more focused on being a better warrior than fathering a nest.)_

Dean doesn’t rightly know what to feel about that. All he can do is really laugh and fold back the blankets on his bed. _(There’s more to sex than doing it just to make kids, y’know?)_

 _(I am aware. Sam was very thorough in his explanation. And it was a very… enlightening… conversation.)_ Cas looks up again and watches him get his guitar. As soon as he sees that, Cas is almost leaning out of the tank excitedly. _(Are you going to play music again?)_

_(Yeah, I was planning on it. Don’t try to change the subject. What was so enlightening about your talk with Sammy?)_

Cas’s back-fins flex and he frowns, settling back into the water slowly. He doesn’t even try to look at Dean now while he’s setting up his guitar and Dean’s never seen him look so uncomfortable. Hell, he’s even rubbing at the back of his neck and there’s a blush creeping over his gills. Dean doesn’t say anything until he’s seated on the bed.

 _(Cas? You know you don’t have to answer all my questions. I’m a nosy bastard. You can tell me to fuck off whenever you’re not comfortable with anything.)_ He strums a few chords to make his point. If Cas doesn’t want to talk, he’ll just play some good ol’ fashioned rock and roll to clear the air between them.

That makes Cas look at him, eyes trained on his hands. Cas likes the music, Dean knows that much. Might as well do something that makes him happy, but first the guitar needs a tuning. It takes a few minutes for Cas to start talking again, and even then it’s slowly and it feel Dean can feel through the kin-connection how hesitant he is about it.

_(I’m not… Dean, I’m not uncomfortable. I just don’t know how to talk about it.)_

_(Talk about what?)_

Cas is quiet again for a while, eyes unfocused while he’s watching Dean. He’s thinking about something, but Dean doesn’t have the first clue that it is until he picks up again. _(Sam said you’re… bisexual? Is that the right term? The one where you like both males and females?)_

Okay, heart, you need to calm the fuck down right now. Just because Cas is bringing up sexuality doesn’t mean there’s hope. There shouldn’t even be hope in the first place. What with the whole _different species_ thing going on. That doesn’t mean that Dean’s throat doesn’t go dry and he licks his lips, stopping his fingers on the guitar.

_(Yeah. I’m an equal opportunity lover. There’s not much point in ignoring half the population when it feels good no matter who I touch. And each gender has their perks. Why?)_

He rubs his neck again and glances around again. _(And the term for liking only one gender?)_

Calm down. Calm down. _Calm down_. Dean’s kind of hates his insides right now. At least he’s still managing to play it cool in the kin-connection. He gets halfway through explaining when it hits him. Cas wouldn’t be asking about the term for liking one gender if he was straight. He wouldn’t have brought this up at all. Which means – _holy fucking shit_. No, no. Dean should _not_ get excited. There’s still the species thing and he can’t draw his own conclusions without Cas outright confirming it. He shouldn’t jump the gun. He should handle this carefully and with all the tact that everyone he knows says he doesn’t have.

 _(Cas, are you saying what I think you’re saying?)_ Masterfully done, Winchester. So well done, in fact, that Cas goes and hides his face against his arms. Dean damn near winces. _(Dude, Im the last person you have to be embarrassed about with this.)_

_(I’m not embarrassed.)_

Dean calls bullshit. _(You’re kinda looking like you are.)_

He’s not expecting the frustrated noise Cas makes or how he shoves his hands into his hair. _(I’m not. I just… Dean, I don’t_ know _. I have no practical experience to determine whether or not I find males more attractive than females. I…)_

Cas licks his lips and rubs his hands together, absently staring at them and not even noticing how Dean’s holding the neck of the guitar hard enough he could probably snap it. _(I did think about it after my conversation with Sam and I realized that I’ve never thought of any of the colony females like that. And I tried thinking about one, and I had no reaction. Then I…)_ He squirms, pulling his tail up under him. _(Then I thought about a male and… I was aroused.)_

Somewhere deep inside him, part of Dean is doing cartwheels. On the outside, though, he’s somehow managing to not only look completely unfazed by this revelation – thank you sweet gods of pie _thank you_ – and he’s even managing to keep the kin-connection pretty calm too. Gold stars all across the board for compartmentalizing his one man party.

_(So what’s the big deal? It just sounds like you like guys better than girls, and there’s nothing wrong with that.)_

Dean regrets being an outwardly cool cucumber the moment Cas bares his fangs and pulses annoyance at him. _(The ‘big deal’ is that I’ve never heard of any fin-kin being attracted to the same gender. For all I know, I could be the only one in my colony. So even if I do manage to ever return home, there is still the very real possibility that there won’t be any males willing to mate with me and I might not find myself aroused enough to be able to mate with a female.)_

Fuck. Don’t tell him he somehow managed to fuck up this too. _(Yeah, okay. I can see how that could be a big deal.)_ There’s something else he noticed and Dean’s going to cut the head off that snake in the grass right now. _(And stop saying ‘if’. You_ are _going to get home, so it’s just a matter of ‘when’.)_ He just needs to figure out a way to pull that off.

Gratitude fills the spaces where the irritation had been. _(Good. So you understand that you were being ridiculous?)_

Hah, nice try. _(I never said that. It’s still a crying shame that you haven’t tried anything yet. And who knows, maybe when you get back things will be different. For one, you actually know about it now so maybe when you get back you might notice things you didn’t before. There’s still the chance that you’ll find someone like you.)_ Saying that, even though it’s with his mind and not his actual voice, leaves a sour taste in Dean’s mouth and he’s not exactly sure why. Just like he’s not sure why he’s asking this next question. _(Tell me you’ve at least kissed someone before, haven’t you?)_

 _(I don’t see how that’s relevant.)_ And there goes the thanks, replacing it with confusion.

 _(It totally is.)_ Not because he’s just being a snoop and wants to know if he might get the chance to steal Cas’s first kiss. _(Unless they’ve got stubble, when you close your eyes you can’t really tell if you’re kissing a girl or a guy. So even if you don’t ever end up having sex, you could at least make out with someone. You’ll just have to… try not to touch their bodies, or something.)_

It’s not like he _wants_ Cas’s first – okay, no. Another lie. Dean wants Cas’s first kiss. For the first time in a long time, someone made him feel special. And that was Cas. Now that he’s got the kin-connection with Sam too, Dean is feeling less special by the moment and he wants to keep that. He wants to be _more_ to Cas than anyone else. This… weird twist in his chest that Cas gives him, as scary as it is, it feels _good_. Dean likes it. He likes the way Cas makes him feel and he wants to keep that. That doesn’t make him a bad person, does it?

Cas sighs and rubs his hand over his face. He’s getting fed up with the conversation but Dean doesn’t want to let it go until he knows for sure. _(I don’t understand what’s so great about kissing. I think it would just be easier to never do anything and devote myself to the protection of the colony.)_

_(That’s bullshit.)_

The things Dean has learned from this conversation amount to but a few things. One being that Cas has _not_ been kissed before, and the other being that Cas doesn’t hold hope for getting out of here, let alone ever finding another gay fin-kin to get it on with. That’s bullshit on so many levels he doesn’t even know where to start counting. What he does know is that there’s at least one thing that he can fix and he wants to fix it _really fucking badly_.

He hasn’t wanted to kiss someone this badly since he started going out with Cassie and she made him wait to the third date for anything past the cheek.

It’s fucking terrifying and that’s still not enough to stop him from getting up and going over. Cas says his name, but Dean is more focused on those dry lips and tracing his fingers along his jaw just light enough that there’s no way Cas doesn’t know what he’s planning on doing – especially not after he leans in and stops, waiting for Cas to decide if he’s willing to accept what Dean wants so badly to give – _take_.

Cas doesn’t pull away. 


	9. Incapable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 7.**

Understanding filters into his head and Dean is forever thankful that he’s got his face buried against the pillow so that it hides his wince. Cas is understanding something and usually when Cas understands something it’s a good thing. But right now? Not so much.

_(My reactions have hurt your ego.)_

The mere mention of that immediately makes his hackles rise and Dean is very much aware that he’s lying through his metaphorical teeth when he denies it. He’s also certain that Cas knows he’s lying because that’s fucking _amusement_ pushing into his head and it sure as hell isn’t his own. Doesn’t mean that he’s not going to keep straight on lying.

 _(I don’t care about it or anything. I’m a fucking awesome kisser.)_ Okay, so not _everything_ he’s saying is a total lie. Because he’s a damn good kisser and he’s got literally dozens of people willing to vouch for him on that. _(I’m just… wondering… if you take away everything else that pissed you off about it last night… Was it, y’know, any good?)_

Dean hasn’t kissed a virgin since his early years of being (very) sexually active and if Cas really didn’t enjoy it, he’s going to have to re-evaluate a few life philosophies or something. Virgins take a certain kind of extra care and it was so spur of the moment that he didn’t really give that to him. Literally the thought had popped into his head and he hadn’t even considered it for more than a second before he went ahead and did it. And it’s not like he mouth-raped Cas or anything. Dean had given him plenty of time to back out or say ‘no’ and Cas hadn’t done a damn thing.

Cas had been surprised, sure as fuck. Dean had felt it in his head, seen it on his face, and Cas hadn’t even _breathed_ right up until Dean had actually kissed him. Then he had made that little noise of surprise that had shot right through Dean like it was a libido-seeking missile. Dean was going to leave it at that, just that little press of lips to lips, but then Cas had made that stupid fucking sound and he couldn’t resist pressing under his chin to make Cas tilt his head back just a little bit more.

And that was going to be that. He would swear upon his first edition signed Metallica vinyl that that was going to be it and licking at Cas’s bottom lip was never intended and totally accidental. Seriously, he had been totally planning to end it right there. But then Cas had fucking _moaned_. It was just another soft, kinda stunned noise. But Dean knows a moan when he hears it and that had been a goddamn moan. And it had set his insides on fire.

To make it worse, Cas had started to push back. He’d started to press into the kiss and Dean’s heart had gone into double – fuck, it had gone into _triple_ time because everything had hit a whole new level of awesome. Those little noises Cas had made as Dean traced the edges of his lips with his tongue, ignoring the salty taste of the sea that infuses every aspect of Cas - Jesus – he’d never stood a chance.

If Dean hadn’t started counting backwards from a hundred and pulled away, he probably would have popped a boner right then and there. And he almost did anyway with that fucking disappointed _whine_ Cas made when he broke the kiss.

It wouldn’t have been the first time Little Dean has given Cas a standing ovation either.

 _(You want to know if I enjoyed it.)_ Cas doesn’t even ask. He’s saying it like it’s a fact and it is, but he’ll be damned before he actually admits that he’s seeking gratification.

_(Well, you did kiss back.)_

_(Yes, that does seem to be something you’re stuck on.)_

Their back-and-forth is entertaining and frustrating as fuck and Dean lets that seep into the kin-connection. Cas may be feeling pretty blah right now, and the thinned emotions in Dean’s head that actually belong to him are kind of difficult to figure out – but Dean can _feel_ Cas’s amusement and it’s all directed right at him.

He groans and shifts to pull his pillow over his head, silently admitting defeat. _(No, fuck this. I don’t care anymore. You can keep your fin-kin weirdness and I won’t try to kiss you again –)_ He catches the curl of disappointment in his chest before it manages to seep out to where Cas can feel it. The last thing he needs right now is Cas knowing that Dean would probably sell his left kidney for a chance to show him what kissing is _really_ about. _(– and we can just forget this whole thing happened.)_

 _(No, I don’t think so.)_ Cas’s thoughts are contemplative and it makes Dean’s heart skip damn close to a stop.

Cautiously, he presses back through the kin-connection, groping for more of Cas’s feelings. _(You don’t think what?)_

 _(I don’t think I’m going to forget this happened. As you said, if we take away everything else…)_ Cas is musing and Dean is _not_ holding his breath while waiting for his answer. _(It was nice and I did enjoy it while it was happening. I could have stopped you, but I didn’t and I’m not entirely sure why.)_

Dean damn near explodes with pride. He doesn’t try very hard to keep that out of the kin-connection because damn right he should be fucking proud. He’s the first person to kiss Cas, the first human to kiss a fin-kin, and Cas _liked_ it. If he could fist-bump himself, he would. Well, he _can_ fist-bump, but he’s sure as shit not doing that in front of Cas.

Anything else he might say doesn’t manage to form, the door beeps as it’s unlocked and Dean sits up, pulling the pillow off his head in the process. There’s only a heated second of worry about who it might be, but then he sees his sasquatch of a little brother and Dean breaks into a wide grin as Jess comes in too. Neither of them look happy – hell, they look fucking _terrified_ and it sends Dean’s stomach dropping to somewhere in the vicinity of his ankles as he vaults out of the bed, his smile dropping away.

“Guys, what’s wrong?” His own anxiety is doubling back at him from Cas and God what he wouldn’t do to keep Cas from ever feeling like that again.

“What did you _do_ , Dean?” Sam hisses at him while flapping a hand over his shoulder at Jess. Dean’s heart relocates to his throat when Jess turns to lock the door. None of this is looking even remotely close to good.

“What are you talking about?” Cas is just as confused by Sam’s question as Dean is.

It’s interesting to have his emotions thudding about in his chest, but having it push into his head from an entirely different source. The weirdest thing is how weird that doesn’t feel anymore. It practically feels natural now and that should be a problem – it probably will be at some point – but it’s not and Dean actually kinda _likes_ it.

Jess is carrying a binder and Cas notices it, which means Dean notices it, but he doesn’t care because it’s not important. The words she says as she puts it in one of the drawers under the counter _is_. “Lilith is on the warpath. We could hear her screaming at Alistair from our bunk. We heard your name. A lot.”

“I haven’t done anything!” And he hasn’t. Dean has been a fucking _angel_ about this whole situation. Not that he’s actually been complaining or anything about technically being under house arrest with Cas.

“She was shouting about Castiel too.” Jess puts her hand on Cas’s shoulder and Cas looks up at her, his confusion pulsing into Dean’s head in response to everything Dean is translating for him.

Well he can understand if she’s yelling about Cas. He did make a pretty epic grab for freedom yesterday, though all he really managed was getting out of the tank. Though if she was pissed about that, it doesn’t explain why she’d be screeching her bleached blonde head off about Dean.

He shrugs. “I have no idea. What, is she pissed about how he tried to escape?”

“No, she thought that was amusing. She even said so when she stopped at the infirmary while I was getting checked.” Sam holds up his arm to show off the bandages. “Whatever she’s raging about now, it happened after that.”

“But nothing happened!” Dean’s fingers are starting to twitch. What the fuck could have Lilith’s silk panties in a twist? He can’t think of a damn thing that he did yesterday that could have pissed her off –

Something pulls hard at him through the kin-connection and all of Dean’s attention swivels straight to Cas. _(Dean. You kissed me.)_

Dean freezes, eyes wide. Cas is staring right back at him, but he looks – for all the world – completely unruffled by this realization. Horror flashes through him and he can’t believe he didn’t think of that first. Jesus fucking Christ he _kissed_ _Cas_ and those right there up in the corners of the room are goddamn cameras. Which means Lilith and her toadies saw every moment of it. How could he be so fucking _stupid_ to not even think about that last night?

“Oh fuck.”

“Goddammit, Dean.” Sam’s mammoth hands grab him by the shoulders and jerk him around so he’s forced to endure the full brunt of the concerned-little-brother-puppy-eyes. “What did you do?”

He doesn’t regret kissing Cas. Not for a moment. But being pinned under that look makes Dean want to shrivel up and find the nearest rock to hide under. His voice sounds way too small and quiet when he chokes out the answer. “I kissed Cas.”

With his reputation, Sam really shouldn’t look _that_ surprised. “You – you _what_?”

Cas clears his throat and Dean tries his damnedest to stop the shiver that shakes down his spine at the rough rasp of his voice. “Dean kiss Castiel.”

Sam looks back and forth between him and Cas. “You kissed – he kissed – Dean, _why_?”

He steps away. It’ll take more than one step to put himself outside of frustrated-striking range, but he can’t do that without it be really obvious. Dean runs a hand through his hair and tries not to fidget beyond that. “He’s never been kissed before and he was talking like he was never – it’s not important, Sammy. It’s nothing to freak out about.”

Cas’s voice drops lower into a soft mumble. “Good kiss.”

If Sam wasn’t glaring at him like he’d be more than happy pushing Dean overboard and letting the sharks have him, he would probably grin at Cas for that comment. Instead, he does what Sam can’t see and lets Cas feel the swell of please gratitude he feels for the compliment.

“Dean, do you have any idea what kind of shit storm you’ve kicked up? Jesus Christ, you fucking _idiot_.” Sam groans and he starts fisting his hair, making his already ridiculous style even more ridiculous as it crinkles and puffs out. “Lilith is going to skin you alive. She’s going to think you’re getting attached to him and you’re going to try and help him escape.”

Despite how every single world is all true, he doesn’t like having them thrown in his face like that. Dean isn’t that obvious, is he? Either way, he crosses his arms over his chest defensively and glares at his brother – one who seems to constantly forget that he is the _little brother_ and that Dean practically raised his ass since he was in diapers.

He makes damn sure that Cas understands that every word about to come out of his mouth is one hundred percent  a lie.

“I’m not getting attached to him, Sam.” Hah, if anything he’s getting _too_ attached. “He belongs to Lilith and I’m not stupid enough to try and get my hands on any of her things.” Fuck, no. Cas doesn’t belong to her and if Cas would let him, he’s pretty sure he would put his hands all over hi – no, fuck no. That is not a track his train of thought wants to take right now or ever.

Cas’s dorsal fins rustle and flare out, his displeasure filtering into Dean’s head. He’d be more worried about that if Cas wasn’t reassuring him that he knows Dean is lying, but it doesn’t mean that either of them have to like the words he’s saying. Especially the next ones.

“It was a _pity kiss_ because the poor fish-man’s never been kissed before and I figured why not have his first kiss me? You know my reputation. I’m _damn_ good.”

Sam stares at him, slack-jawed and stupid looking. Dean seriously hope Sam is just playing the fool, because there is no way his own fucking _brother_ doesn’t know him well enough to see that every single one of those words were a lie. Sam’s mouth shuts with a snap and his eyes slip from Dean to Cas for a split-second. Even a blind man would be able to see that Cas is telling Sam about the charade.

When Jess slaps him, Dean is wholly unprepared for it and it actually fucking _hurts_. He touches his stinging cheek, frowning at her – and he would be worried that his soon-to-be sister-in-law thinks he’s the crown prince of ass-dom, if it wasn’t for the way she’s looking at him with soft eyes and a half-smile. Somehow she still manages to sound like she’s royally pissed off and it’s a little terrifying actually.

“I can’t believe you, Dean! Castiel is a _person_ and you’re treating him like an animal! You’re… you’re just as bad as Alistair. I can’t even look at you right now.” Her face sets into something harder and she turns away to mess about with shit on the counter.

Sam picks up where Jess left off and he groans, rubbing his hands over his face. “I think this is possibly the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

Well, that’s not fair. Dean has done way more stupider things than kissing Cas. Hell, he’s more than willing to rank kissing Cas in the top five Best Things Dean Has Ever Done. And it’s not like Sam hasn’t made some truly _epic_ fuck-ups in his lifetime – first and foremost, nearly killing himself on those damn drugs  with Ruby. And we can’t forget the time Sam thought it would be a good idea to try and make nice with that feral mutt that lived on the edge of Bobby’s scrap yard.

Dean is ready to spit out every single stupid thing Sam has ever done, but the door beeps again and rattles against the bolt. Everyone in the room freezes and Cas’s fins spread wide again. Dean barely manages to not flinch when the banging starts up and he shares Sam’s wide-eyed look before Sam turns to unlock and open the door.

He doesn’t need the kin-connection with Cas to know who’s standing on the other side of the door. Lilith’s nasty-ass perfume precedes her like a reeking cloud of death and Dean would maybe gag on it if he wasn’t really fucking concerned about what kind of shit is about to go down.

“Sam. Jessica.” Lilith shoves past Sam and if her voice wasn’t cold enough, the look she fixes on Dean is damn near Arctic. Her voice actually manages to drop a few octaves and if Dean was a lesser man, he probably would have pissed himself when she hisses his name.

He refuses to look away. He’s sick of being treated like trash by this stuck up bitch and he’d rather deal with her rage than bow his head in front of her again. Especially when he’s done nothing wrong. Especially when she’s done the equivalent of fucking _kidnapping_ and _slavery_ with Cas.

Lilith’s eyes narrow and she makes a sharp gesture at Sam and Jess without looking away. “You two. Leave.”

“Lilith –” Sam protests. May the gods of Rock bless him for even trying, but he should keep his fucking mouth shut and get out before she decides to bring down the thunder on his head too.

“Now.”

At least Jess has some sense and she comes forward,  pushing Sam out the door as he stumbles over his words, trying to object. The moment they’re out the door, Alistair and Gordon come in. Dean’s fingers flex into a tight fist and he’s starting to anticipate for the worst because fucking _Kubrick_ steps in after them and actually locks the goddamn door.

Kubrick is a religious nutcase with the sole purpose is… fuck, Dean doesn’t even know why Kubrick’s on the boat. He’s a jack of all trades, helping in the kitchen or moving shit around for the nerds on the other science deck. Once or twice he’s even offered a hand to help down in the engine rooms and there’s just something _off_ about him that rubs Dean’s fur the wrong way.

There is nothing good about this situation and there’s way too much space between him and Cas for Dean’s liking. His nails are biting painfully into his palms as Gordon and Alistair take up positions on either side of Cas’s tank. If he could, he’d love to plant himself in the tank right next to Cas and make sure that none of these assholes lay another hand on him ever again.

Cas’s emotions are pushing insistently into his head and there is nothing good about them. He can see the way those fans along his tail are rippling and Dean knows Cas is just as sick with worry about what’s about to happen as he is.

“Do you know why I’m here, Dean?” Lilith steps closer and all of his attention is immediately back on her because she is uncomfortably close. Close enough that she has to tilt her head back to look up at him.

There was no way he could lie his way out of this one. “Yes.”

“Then you also know why I’m unhappy.”

“I do.” Nothing about this is looking good and Dean has no idea what’s going to happen next or what the hell even requires three sets of incorrigible muscle to be here.

“Do you have an explanation, Dean?”

“Yes.” He most certainly does, and Dean parrots back at her a brief summation of the lies he gave to Sam and Jess for the cameras. It ends with another slap to his face and it earns Lilith a grunt, but he doesn’t move an inch. Dean would even be willing to bet good money that her hand is stinging almost worse than his cheek. “Yeah, Jess did the same too.”

“For entirely different reasons, I’m sure.” Her upper lip curls in a sneer and if she wasn’t such a bitch, she’d probably be beautiful. Dean glares down at her and doesn’t flinch when her hand snaps out, perfectly manicured finger pointing behind him at his bed. “Lay down.”

Cas’s confusion is spiking into his brain and it’s mixing with Dean’s wariness to do anything that Lilith is telling him to do. Especially something like laying down while the room is full of people he’d be more likely to classify as an enemy than anything even close to being a friend. And he saw this happen one too many times in prison to other guys to even think for a second that he should obey her every word without hesitation.

“I don’t really feel comfortable with doing that.”

Every fiber of his being is telling Dean to reassure Cas that everything is going to be fine. He wants to look over at him, make sure that nothing bad is happening to him, but he won’t look away from Lilith. He won’t back down from this without a fight. Dean can feel himself tensing. He hasn’t hit a woman yet in his life – his dad taught him better than that – but Lilith has severely tested every limit he has in the weeks he’s been working for the stuck-up princess.

But Cas doesn’t need to feel any of that. He doesn’t need to feel how much Dean has come to fucking _hate_ her for what she’s doing to Cas. Dean doubts that even if Cas made the kin-connection with her and let Lilith feel every last bit of just how much he yearns for the sea and his family and his home, she probably still wouldn’t let him go.

“I don’t care. Either lay down or you can leave the room until we’re done.”

That makes Dean’s heart skip a beat. They’re here to do something to Cas and there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that he’s going to leave Cas alone with any of them. “Done with what?”

“Lay down or leave. Decide now, Dean.”

He grits his teeth together and narrows his eyes at her. If he concentrates really hard, maybe he can make her head explode. That would be nice – gruesome, but nice. It would solve so many of their problems right now. Dean hates every movement, but he steps back until the bed presses behind his knees. He makes no move to sit down and Lilith’s words take on a short, clipped and deadly tone.

“On your stomach with your hands behind your back.”

Now that is definitely something he does not want to do. Not even slightly. It’s uncomfortable to the tenth degree and he’d rather shave his head than submit to Lilith and her cronies like that. Cas seems to have the same idea because he’s hissing in his tank, fans flaring and Dean spares him a quick glance, just one, to make sure he’s alright. Cas’s unhappiness with Lilith’s instructions is washing through into his head and Dean is honestly surprised that the idea of him laying like that is just as upsetting to Cas as it is to him.

“Kubrick.” Lilith holds out her hand behind her and he steps forward, lifting a looped length of rope that Dean hadn’t noticed before.

Oh God, are they planning on tying Cas up? No. _Fuck no_. They’re not going to do anything of the sort while Dean is upright and mobile. He hardens, inside and out, and he pitches his voice into the downright _scary_ spectrum he’s used to ward off douchebags when they don’t know just how fucked they are now that they’ve pissed off Dean fucking Winchester.

“Don’t you touch him. Don’t you fucking touch him.”

Lilith hesitates, but only slightly, before taking the rope and uncoiling it slowly. “This is for you.” That really isn’t something he should be relieved about. “Hands behind your back and on your stomach. I want to make sure you don’t interfere.”

Her hand touches his shoulder and Dean would love nothing more than to grab her wrist and bodily toss the bitch out of the room, but he begrudgingly lets her turn him around slowly. He glares at her until he can’t anymore and he keeps his fists tightly clenched as he crosses his wrists in the small of his back. The moment he does that, he hears sloshing water and a growl that sends goosebumps rippling across his skin.

“No! No touch Dean!”

Lilith’s fingers dig into his shoulder, keeping him from turning around to see what Cas is doing. “Alistair. Gordon.”

At the snarl and the splashing, Dean shrugs off Lilith’s hand and turns around in time to see those sons-of-bitches slam Cas face down on the floor.

“Cas!” Dean takes a step forward before Lilith moves into his path and shoves him back.

The look on her face leaves no room for discussion. He stays put as she steps behind him and jerks his wrists together to tie them tight. The rope pinches into his skin and Dean is close to snarling himself when Gordon sits across Cas’s back, pinning his arms down. Alistair sits on his hips and Kubrick finally joins in, laying over Cas’s tail to keep it from thrashing.

Cas is panicking. Dean can feel it pounding into his head and it hurts but it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as his chest does. His whole body feels like it’s too tight and each breath is almost painful. He knows it’s his own panic burning hard under his skin and he’s trying not to let that feed into the kin-connection as he pulls at the rope holding his hands in place.

“Get off of him you fuckers!” Dean is shouting at them and ‘ineffective’ isn’t strong enough a word to describe how fucking useless he is. “He can’t fucking breathe with you sitting on him like that! Let him go you asshats!”

 _(Dean!)_ Cas calls for him and it’s desperate and scared and Dean can feel the rope biting into his skin as he keeps pulling at it.

“Goddammit, Lilith, let him go! Cas hasn’t done a fucking thing, let him go!” He gets a face full of mattress for that as Lilith spins him around and kicks his feet out from under him. Dean hits the bed hard and damn near bites his tongue off. He grunts and tries to roll over again, but Lilith fucking sits on his legs and starts to tie his ankles together and he has never hated anyone as much as he hates her

Everything is doubling back and forth between him and Cas through the kin-connection and he knows Cas is just as worried about what’s happening to him as he is about what’s happening to Cas. It’s not fair to Cas to be feeling twice that nervous anxiety and Dean’s own rage burning through his veins. He takes deep breath through the pillow, centering and focusing himself until he can imagine the walls in his head. Dean places those walls between him and Cas, cutting off the part of their link that lets him share his emotions. He’s going to have to keep focusing on that to keep those walls from falling, but it spares Cas having to feel more than his own.

 _(You don’t need to feel mine too, Cas. But you need to calm down and let them do what they came here to do.)_ Dean absolutely hates having to say that. He wants nothing more than to break the ropes and start kicking some ass. He’s damn good at kicking ass, but they’ve got Cas in such a vulnerable position that if he tries anything, they could hurt Cas just to punish him. Fuck if he’s going to do anything to let that happen. _(Whatever Lilith is planning, it probably won’t take long and I swear to God if they hurt you I’ll throw them all off this fucking boat.)_ And that’s one of the nicest things he’s thinking of.

Lilith pats him sharply on the heel once he’s all tied down before she gets up. The moment he hears her walking away, Dean rolls onto his side and curves his back so he can see what they’re doing. Cas is still squirming under the weight of the fuckwads pinning him, and Dean plots every absolutely terrible thing he can think of to do to them for hurting Cas like that.

“Gordon, move.” Lilith kneels at Cas’s head and the moment Gordon shifts down  to Cas’s waist, she grabs a handful of Cas’s hair and forces him up and to the side and Cas makes an uncomfortable hissing noise that makes Dean’s blood curdle.

He can’t really see Lilith’s expression, but her self-satisfied smile is all too audible in her words. “Hello, Castiel.”

“ _Lilith_.” Cas hisses back and he sounds like he’s going to put up a fight no matter what and fuck if Dean isn’t really fucking proud of him for that.

“Yes, good. You know your master’s name.” Lilith’s voice is dripping with false sweetness and it’s making bile rise in the back of Dean’s throat. “You need to remember that I _own_ you. Dean is only here to make sure you listen until we get home. After that, I’ll be able to train you properly and you’ll never see him again. Do you understand that?”

He has to bite back a million snarky comments because if he says anything now, it’ll only make everything worse. Contrary to popular belief, he _does_ know how to hold his tongue. Dean keeps translating – albeit rather bitterly – her words for Cas. Under the translations, Dean keeps thinking of every little thing he’d love to snap back at her. He’d love to tell her to fuck off, or to go fuck herself, and he keeps repeating a mantra in the back of his mind because it’s all he can fucking do right now.

Dean knows Cas is hearing all of those too, and he should be keeping them to himself because that must be all sorts of confusing for him. But then Cas does something so fucking unexpected that Dean can’t keep the swell of pride he feels for his finny friend behind the walls in his mind.

Cas twists back and Dean can barely see the misleading smile he gives Lilith before he speaks, almost serenely. “Fuck you, Lilith.”

Kubrick gasps in surprise while Alistair and Gordon quickly muffled little snorts of laughter. The pained sound Cas makes when Lilith slams his head back into the floor makes Dean’s blood boil. He would give anything right now for Cas to be anywhere but here.

“Dean is a very bad influence on you. I see that it’s going to take  a lot of training to work him out of your system.” Lilith turns a cold glare toward him and it takes everything Dean has not to snap back at her. She’s looking at him, but she keeps talking to Cas. “But you’ll learn, Castiel. I’ve never had a pet I haven’t been able to break.”

Gordon shifts back up Cas’s back and Cas’s starts panicking again. It’s flashing hard and bright into Dean’s head and he’s having trouble focusing on Lilith and seeing what she’s doing. She’s unlocking some drawer under the counter that Dean knows nothing about and when she lifts out a fancy looking gun, Dean’s blood runs cold.

“What the hell is tha–” It takes a moment to place it, but Dean has seen enough National Geographic to know what that is and he starts struggling harder against the ropes, not caring that they’re rubbing his wrists raw. “No, Lilith, no! Don’t!” It’s hard to care that he sounds more terrified than he does angry. He needs to stop her, she can’t do that, anything but that. “Don’t use that! Please, Lilith, don’t!”

She completely ignores him. He can feel Cas tugging at him through the kin-connection, trying to get his attention and see what’s going on. But Dean doesn’t want to show him, he doesn’t want Cas to know that Lilith is going to use a giant fucking needle gun to shove a goddamn tracking tag under his skin. It would be better for Cas to know what’s happening, but he can’t do it. Dean doesn’t want Cas to see that kind of cruelty – even though he’ll be feeling it in a moment.

And the worst thing is that Cas isn’t even scared for himself. He can feel it plain as day in his head that Cas is terrified Lilith is going to do something to _Dean_. He’s calling his name in his head again. But it’s not Dean with the dorsal fins that Gordon is pulling apart while Lilith kneels next to him and checking that the gun is loaded with a tracking chip.

Dean can see those ruffled fans along Cas’s tail start to ripple and the trembling is small at best, but he can see it shaking Cas’s arms where they’re pinned by Gordon’s legs. Cas jerks and tenses up when Lilith positions the gun somewhere up by his shoulder blades and Dean is fucking livid, he’s struggling hard against the ropes and he’s probably bleeding by now but he can’t just sit still while they violate Cas this way again.

But there’s literally nothing he can do but try and make sure that this hurts as little as possible for him. _(Cas, don’t tense up. Relax your muscles right the fuck now or this is going to hurt way more than it needs to. I’m sorry, Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry. I had no idea she’d do this, I really didn’t.)_

If he’d known, he never would have kissed Cas. He didn’t regret it before, but he does now. God, does he ever now. He hates that this is happening because of him, because he just had to kiss the goddamn merman.

Dean closes his eyes at the click-snap sound of the gun when Lilith pulls the trigger. Cas’s choked scream cuts off almost immediately, but the sound burns itself into Dean’s head and he’s never going to forget it. He’s never going to forgive Lilith – or himself – for this.

This is the first time Cas has been in pain while the kin-connection is up and running and Dean can sort of feel it, but at the same time he can’t. He doesn’t feel the pain himself the same way he would if it was happening to him, but there’s a phantom ache pulsing in his back like he scar on his hip sometimes does when he remembers what it felt like when he was stabbed.

He’s still learning how this whole mind-meld link thing works, but Dean concentrates. He focuses on that bright, alien light sitting on the edge of his mind and he reaches for it. He pulls at Cas’s thoughts, trying to get a hold of the pain Cas is feeling and take it onto himself. He’d rather be the one in pain than ever letting Cas feel something like this because of him.

Dean keeps apologizing and calling Cas’s name, trying to get him to answer or do anything. He can hear the small, gasping breaths Cas is taking – or trying to take with Gordon still sitting on him – and it’s making his insides crawl. He’s plotting every terrible, horrible thing he can do to them – like feeding them piece by fucking piece through a meat grinder, or throw them broken and bleeding into a pig pen, fuck he doesn’t care he just wants them to _pay_ for what they’ve done to Cas.

“Let him up.”

Dean’s eyes pop open at Lilith’s words and he bites his tongue, watching as Gordon hesitates to let go of Cas’s arms. “You sure? You saw what he did to Sam.”

“He knows better. Besides, I have a present for him.”

Oh God, what else could the bitch have planned? Dean squirms again and pain shoots up his arm as he twists it under him. He ignores it in favour of hating himself viciously when the fuckwads get up and Cas immediately curls up on himself, hiding under his fins and fans. Cas keeps making little whimpering noises that are shredding Dean up on the inside and he wants to wrap Cas up in his arms and protect him from the world – this stupid, fucking horrible world of inhuman monsters.

He shoves all his self-hate and shame for what his own goddamn people are doing down as deep as he can, hiding it in boxes and behind so many walls there’s no hope Cas will ever get to feel it. Right now isn’t the time to be thinking all that. Not when Cas needs him and especially not when these shitheads are still in the room. Definitely not when Gordon pulls a dart-gun out from under his lab coat and stands by the door with the damn thing leveled at Cas like Cas is going to explode and start clawing the fuck out of everyone and anyone.

Lilith crouches next to Cas and Dean tenses. He reaches out to Cas’s mind. He stretches through their connection and touches that bright, trembling light. _(Cas, man, listen to me, please. Don’t attack. Don’t do anything. Gordon has a dart-gun and he’ll knock you out and I know they’ve got more tests they want to run that’ll be easier if you’re out. Lilith is going to touch you and you need to_ not react, _okay?)_

Cas flinches when she touches his tail, but that’s all he does and Dean’s relief is small and brief. Lilith gently strokes his scales and something dark and angry flares behind Dean’s sternum as he watches her pet him.

“Sit up, Castiel.”

The way Cas complies immediately, uncurling just enough to push himself up until he’s sitting. He folds his tail against his chest and hugs it tight, hiding his face against his scales and Dean absolutely _hates_ seeing him like this. Cas is fucking badass, a gorgeous, strong fighter and he’s been reduced to this shaking leaf and Dean fucking _hates_ it.

He hates how Lilith is petting Cas’s hair and stroking his ear-fins and talking to him like he’s a baby or some toy poodle that she could hide in her goddamn purse. She’s calling him ‘good boy’ like he’s a fucking animal and he’s anything but and why can’t these ass clowns fucking _see_ it?

Dean sees the flash of blue in Lilith’s hand, but he doesn’t know what it is until Cas makes a startled noise and jerks back, his confusion slipping through the kin-connection. Lilith is blocking everything with her body but when she steps away and Dean can actually see what she did, his insides turn and he thinks he might be sick.

Cas’s hatred for Lilith burns just as bright as his own, and Cas stares up at her while he fingers the collar – a goddamn _collar_ – around his neck. He has no idea what he’s touching and Dean is loath to tell him what she did, to tell him what Lilith has marked him as. But he has too. Cas wants to know, he has to know, and Dean can’t just keep something like this from him.

 _(It’s a collar, Cas. She fucking_ collared _you.)_ It’s with no small amount of disgust – bile actually stinging the back of his throat – that he takes what he’s seeing and feeds it through the kin-connection so Cas can see it. The colour drains from Cas’s face and his fingers still over the pendant. He looks about as sick as Dean feels over this and his hand drops to his tail again.

Dean’s nails are digging into his palms again and if he isn’t already bleeding somewhere, he probably will be soon. Lilith is touching Cas again and Dean is damn near surprised by just how much he really doesn’t like other people – specifically Lilith – touching Cas.

“It matches your colours nicely. You look lovely, Castiel.” She’s touching the collar and if the look Cas is giving her is any indication, he wants to break her fingers probably more than Dean does.

And then Lilith cups Cas’s face with both hands, brushing her thumbs over his cheeks and jaw. Even though Dean isn’t even remotely religious, he starts praying for a lightning strike, a typhoon, spontaneous combustion, anything that will make Lilith stop touching Cas like it’s her God given right to do it. He knows it’s jealousy and an ugly kind of possession burning away at his lungs and his ribs and Dean is disgusted that he’s feeling anything like that for Cas – because Cas isn’t something to be owned or fought over and it’s _wrong_. But he can’t fucking help it because she’s touching him like she’s going to kiss him –

Lilith leans in and Cas’s surprise pulses against Dean’s mind. He sees how Cas tries to Lean back and the way his fingers flex over his tail and all his fins twitch and flex. But Lilith is holding him firmly in place and Dean forces Cas out of his head the moment she actually fucking kisses him. He doesn’t cut Cas out completely, but he slams up every kind of goddamn wall he can to keep Cas from getting even a glimmer of the _rage_ that is making Dean’s muscles shake as he strains against the ropes.

She’s kissing Cas. Lilith is _kissing Cas_. It’s wrong on so many fucking levels he doesn’t even know where to start and he’s so angry he can’t see straight. Dean’s blood is pumping in his ears and drowning out everything and he might crack a tooth, he’s clenching his teeth so hard. Lilith is talking again and it’s a struggle to reign himself in. He only catches the last bit of her words.

“– you’re bad, I’ll have to punish you and we don’t want that, do we?”

Dean lets just a little section of the walls around his mind down, just enough that he can talk to Cas again. For Cas’s sake, he forces his thoughts to remain steady. It’s a false calm, one that he’s certainly not feeling himself. _(Shake your head, Cas. Tell her that you don’t want that.)_

For one moment, Cas’s eyes slip from Lilith to him and Dean knows he’s shaking and that his lips are pressed together to keep himself from saying anything untoward that will, undoubtedly, get him in more trouble. And he probably looks scary as all hell, but he can’t help it. He’s just so fucking _pissed_ that he has to tell Cas to submit to the bitch when all he really wants is for Cas to tear her to pieces.

He’s never had such bloody, violent thoughts before and maybe in another lifetime he was a serial killer or something, but right now he doesn’t care. Lilith is a sick, twisted son of a bitch and she needs to be stopped before they get too far to ever get Cas home again.

Cas looks back up at Lilith and shakes his head like Dean told him to. Dean has to hold his breath to keep from growling at her when she starts petting Cas’s hair again.

“Good boy. And if you’re on your best behaviour, I’ll even let you and Dean do whatever you want together.” Lilith’s hand drops to the collar and she jerks Cas forward by it. Dean has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from swearing at her. “You just need to remember that you belong to _me_ and Dean won’t be around forever. So have your fun while you can.”

That’s bullshit of the worst kind. Dean isn’t going anywhere as long as Lilith has Cas. He’s going to stick with him until the bitter end, whether it’s Cas getting set free or – no, he doesn’t even want to think about any other options. Cas _will_ get out of here. He’ll risk his goddamn life to get it done. It’s the very least he can do when it’s his dumbass little brother who caught Cas in the first place. But that’s not the only reason and he doesn’t want to look that closely at any of the reasons that fall beyond the category of ‘because Cas is a _friend_.’

Lilith bends forward and kisses Cas on the forehead again – that sick feeling fills his stomach again – before she turns away and Dean’s emotions must be written all over his face because her smile stretches victorious and cruel across her lips.

“Oh don’t look so scary, Dean. You knew he was mine before you even met him. I really don’t understand this fuss you’re making, but you can stay like that as punishment until I decide to let your brother back in.” She turns away again, completely ignoring the daggers Dean is trying to glare into her forehead, and gestures at the asshats waiting by the door. “I want two of you to stand guard outside. Sam and Jess can come back in… oh, an hour? Maybe two? Keep Singer and Meg out too. And Kubrick, turn off that damn pump.”

Dean waits until the pump is off and the door is shut before he rolls onto his stomach. Blood rushes back into his arm and it tingles painfully, but it’s something he can easily ignore in favour of trying to pull free of his bindings. He’ll be damned if he’s going to stay tied up on his own fucking bed for another few hours just because Lilith is a colossal cunt.

He’ll give her props at being really good at knots, though. Because shit, these ropes aren’t giving even slightly and that’s both admirable and really fucking annoying. He starts squirming and the sheets rustling as he wiggles about. Dean probably looks six different kinds of ridiculous, but he just wants to be free so he can check on Cas and make sure he’s okay.

When cold hands close over his wrists, Dean nearly shits his pants. _(Dean, stop.)_ Cas touches his thoughts as lightly as he’s touching his arms.

 _(Holy shit! Cas, don’t sneak up on a guy like that!)_ Dean tries twisting to see Cas.

He catches a glimpse of him sitting curled on the floor next to the bed before Cas pulls on his hip to get him to lay flat again. _(Don’t move.)_

A twinge pulls painfully in his neck, but Dean can’t stop watching over his shoulder as Cas drags himself up onto the bed. His arms shake as he does it and the bedding bunches under him as he pushes and pulls himself up to sit by his legs. Dean tries shuffling over to give him more room. He’s very careful in not noticing the play of muscles under Cas’s skin or the fact that Cas is now sitting on his bed and Dean is face down and tied up and he’s pretty sure this has happened to him at least once before and that had ended very, _very_ differently than this likely will.

Once Cas is settled, half his tail still hanging over the edge of the bed, he touches Dean’s wrists. He winces and bites back a hiss of pain. Christ, the ropes must have rubbed him raw pretty fucking badly because _ow_. Cas picks at the ropes for a few moments and Dean can’t really see what’s happening over his shoulder. When Cas leans down, Dean’s breath catches in his throat and he starts counting backward from a hundred again because _shit_ after everything that just happened this should _not_ be even remotely sexy.

Cas chews at the ropes until they snap and Dean sags with relief against the bed when his arms fall free. He will deny before God and the court that he actually _squeaks_ when Cas’s hands fall on his ankles and he’s leaning down the other way. Dean props himself up on an elbow and turns to look back at him. Even from this angle he doesn’t look human, but Dean can’t think of him as anything but another person. He’s just got a scaled tail instead of legs, and those wicked awesome dorsal fans and – just – he needs to stop thinking.

The ropes around his ankles snap and Cas sits back, tossing them to the floor.

 _(Thanks, Cas. You didn’t have to –)_ He starts, pulling his legs up under him to sit cross-legged.

Cas cuts him off, flaring his dorsal fins sharply. Dean jerks back to avoid being hit and Cas ruffles the webbing between the spines. He glances over his shoulder at Dean and his eyes are wide and pleading. His thoughts through the kin-connection are verging on desperate and Dean hates that he’s feeling like that.

_(What did she do to my back?)_

Dean bites his lip and he’s only a little hesitant to touch Cas again. He’s actually a little scared to touch Cas. The kiss alone had been so fucking _addicting_. He wants to do it again – hell, he wanted to do it again before he’d even finished kissing him the first time – but he can’t. Cas said so himself and Dean isn’t going to do anything that will make him uncomfortable.

He ghosts his touch over the hard spines of Cas’s fins and the soft webbing in between. A shiver makes Cas tremble and Dean isn’t sure if it’s because he’s out of the water or because he’s touching him, but his heart skips a beat when Cas leans back into his hands, his fins flexing into the touch. He swallows thickly and touches lightly under the clasp of the collar. It’s just something simple that he could easily undo, but if he does… who knows what Lilith might do. As much as he hates to admit it, he’s going to have to leave it be for now.

It’s with careful, barely there touches, that he works his fingers down along Cas’s spine. He can see the welt nestled between his shoulder blade and spine and he could reach right for that, but he’s not going to pass up this excuse to get to _touch_ Cas. It’s a really fucking low thing for him to do, but he’s been thinking about it for a few days now and it’s been driving him crazy.

When he touches closer to that red welt, Cas gasps and pulls away. _(Sorry…)_ Dean winces in sympathy and moves his hands up just a little higher. The needle gun probably bruised the muscle around it and Dean should have been more careful. How the fuck is he supposed to help Case escape when he’s got this chip in his back and she can track him anywhere he goes in the world.

Dean leans forward and presses his forehead right under the collar’s clasp. Everything suddenly feels ten times more hopeless and none of this would ever have happened if he hadn’t kissed Cas last night. So on top of hopelessness he’s got his usual healthy dose of self-deprecation and at least in his head it’s turning out to be a usual Friday for him.

Cas’s fins shuffle slightly and Dean sighs. He can’t keep the truth from Cas forever. _(She… it was a tag-gun.)_ He’s super reluctant to do it, but Dean drops more of the walls around his mind – now that he’s got himself under better control – and he shares with Cas everything that he sees and knows about tracking chips.

The moment understanding clicks on in Cas’s head like a light bulb, he jerks away and starts straining to reach the welt. His breathing goes into double time and Dean winces under the horror and panic starting to pulse through the kin-connection. _(Dean, take it out!)_

God, he wants to. If he could bring himself to do it, he’d get out his pocket knife right now and cut it out of Cas’s back himself. But he can’t do that to him. He can’t cut into Cas and make him bleed. The last thing he ever wants to see is Cas’s blood.

 _(I… I can’t, Cas.)_ Dean grabs at Cas’s arms, folding them down to his sides to get him to stop. _(She’ll just put it back and she might ‘punish’ us – whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean – if we do anything to it. We’re going to have to leave it there and… I’ve got a friend on board, a veterinarian, I’ll ask her what we can do to get it out and I swear this won’t be in your back when we get you out of here.)_

Cas is starting to tremble under his hands and let’s go. He’s starting to not be able to trust himself where it comes to touching Cas and he doesn’t want to do anything more that might freak him out – especially not right now. But then Cas’s dorsal fins tuck up against his back and suddenly Cas just sags like a sack of potatoes, falling right back against Dean’s chest and Dean lifts his arms in an aborted hug.

He wants to comfort Cas so bad, but all he has is the regret that he pushes at the alien light on the edge of his mind and the constant apologies that are like the worst laugh track of all time playing in the back of his head. Dean can’t bring himself to wrap Cas up in his arms – though not even twenty minutes ago that’s all he wanted to do when Cas was making those soft little whimpering noises.

And then Cas makes a new sound. It’s a heart wrenching stifled sob of a sound that makes Cas’s shoulders twitch where they’re pressing into Dean’s chest and that one little noise completely fucking eradicates any of Dean’s indecision. He crushes Cas to him in the tightest hug he can give, offering up every ounce of comfort he can give with this one little action.

Cas twists in his arms and presses his face against Dean’s tattoo. He doesn’t give a second thought to the fact that he’s not wearing a shirt and that Cas’s wicked black claws are pricking almost painfully into his back when he digs his fingers in. Dean’s whole world has narrowed down to nothing but the pained, hopeless noises Cas is whimpering into his skin and how he shakes with ever gasped breath.

There’s nothing sexual about this and Dean completely and happily shuts out that half of his brain. He does the same thing he did yesterday evening and runs his fingers through Cas’s hair and along the side of his back where the chip isn’t hidden under his skin. Dean holds Cas to him until his back starts to protest the position and then he’s slowly laying back, stretching out his legs across the bed.

Cas is still half hanging off the bed and it’s a little bit of a struggle to hook his tail with one foot and pull it up the rest of the way. He’s about to give that venture up for loss, but then Cas shifts, drawing his tail up over the edge and it tangles around Dean’s legs in a way that threatens to make him start thinking the things he really shouldn’t be thinking right now. Those can wait until he’s alone in the shower or something.

Right now, all he needs to focus on is Cas. He’s not going to let go until Cas does, until they find some kind of equal ground where Cas calms down and Dean doesn’t hate himself for being the same species as the douchebags who did this to Cas. Until then, he’ll lie here with Cas curled around him and pressed against him and he’ll steady ignore how fucking natural it feels for them to be like this.


	10. Bad Decisions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 8 and Chapter 9.**

Dean should have kept his big mouth – big brain, _whatever_ – shut. Semantics aside, he should’ve just looked away and not mentioned a damn thing about Cas and his penchant for finger licking. It was fucking _stupid_ of him and now Cas is on the verge of another panic attack and it’s all his fault because he couldn’t keep his brain out of the goddamn gutter for five fucking minutes.

As if Dean didn’t already hate himself for how much shit Cas went through today because of him.

Cas’s is thinking private thoughts, he’s sure of it, but that doesn’t mean his emotions, his _panic_ isn’t pulsing hard and bright through the kin-connection. It’s making Dean feel like shit because that’s _his_ fault. Cas would be sitting back and enjoying his first hamburger right now if Dean hadn’t been a dick by thinkingwith his.

But Cas is staring at him, eyes wide and – fuck – and _scared_. Dean needs to intervene and he needs to do it right the fuck now before Cas actually does enter full blown panic attack mode. He slides off the counter, dumping his container into his spot. _(Whoa, Cas, whoa! Calm down. You look like you’re going to have another panic attack or something.)_ Understatement. _(It’s not that big a deal, really.)_

Please, please don’t make it into a big deal. It’s bad enough that Dean just _had_ to kiss him and ended up getting a fucking _tracking device_ implanted under Cas’s skin. If Cas freaks out again, if they manage to piss Lilith off again, who knows what’s going to happen. But it’s not going to be good, that’s a given.

“What happened?” Jess asks and Dean barely hears her, he’s too focused on trying to think of a way to calm Cas down.

He _does_ hear Sam’s disapproving accusation. “Did you say something stupid, Dean?”

If it wasn’t one hundred percent true, he’d would probably be pissed that Sam automatically jumps to blaming him. “Yeah, yeah, I said something stupid. Shut up and let me deal with it.” Dean waves Sam off and slowly walks around the edge of the tank, hoping Cas doesn’t flip out or anything. He already looks wild eyed and the ruffled fans along the sides of his tail are rippling like crazy.

 _(I’m sorry, Cas. I didn’t – I don’t know what you’re freaking about now, but it’s okay, really. I’m not mad or anything, I swear. If you have another freak out, Lilith is going to be pissed. Remember how we just talked about this?)_ Dean should drop the walls he’s got blocking all his emotions. He’s not thinking dirty thoughts about Cas anymore – too worried for that now. But he should drop those walls and try to reach out and soothe that intense _panic_.

Dean does drop the walls – but it’s only out of surprise when Cas actually draw _away_ from him, tucking into a corner and pulling his tail to chest. Cas looks like he’s terrified of him and that fucking _hurts_. He doesn’t bothering hiding that or just how concerned he is about what the hell is going on here with the kin-connection.

 _(Cas? I’m not going to hurt you or anything. If this is about the being seductive thing, I didn’t mean – well I did mean that you were being accidentally sexy – but I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or whatever it is that I did. Please, man, talk to me?)_ Dean can feel his own kind of panic starting to fill his stomach. Everything he ate is turning sour and he wants to comfort Cas, he wants to lift him out of the water and hold him tight and make everything bad go away – even if the bad is him.

 _(I need to swim.)_ Cas sinks until the water is lapping at his chin. He presses his hands into his eyes and they’re shaking with little tremors and that’s scaring Dean.

Why the hell is ‘you were acting sexy’ making Cas freak the fuck out like this? Dean doesn’t and Cas isn’t answering and Dean’s gonna drop into his own panic attack if Cas doesn’t give him some kind of answer soon.

He wants to swim? “Yeah, okay, we can do that.” He doesn’t take his eyes off him as he backs up toward the pump. The tank still needs filling and he flips the switch to get it going. It shouldn’t take very long, it’s one hell of a pump. _(Are you going to let Pam look at your back before we get you into the tank?)_

Cas tucks his tail under him a little more, sitting up a little more again. He nods and there’s a little pulse of confirmation through the kin-connection, but then his gills flutter and Dean doesn’t miss the worried glance between Sam and Jess before Cas presses his hands over them to keep them flat while he takes long, deep breathes. He’s trying to calm down and he’s _still_ not telling him _why_. Dean is starting to feel like he’s going to be sick.

Looks like Cas isn’t that far off from him. He dips his head and presses the back of his hand over his mouth. Dean is next to the tank and reaching for Cas before he even realizes it, before he even remembers that Cas _pulled away from him_. Sam’s curious look is annoying and it just makes Dean’s stomach drop as he pulls his hand back and lets it drop to his side.

For one brief moment – the first in history – Dean hates Jess because _she_ gets to touch Cas’s shoulder without him flinching away immediately. She must be talking to him, saying something in the kin-connection that Dean can’t hear. It’s not fair – all he wanted to do was not have an accidental erection in the middle of dinner because Cas was kept _licking his goddamn fingers_. How was he _not_ supposed to think sexy thoughts while watching that?

Cas shakes his head and jerks his shoulder away from Jess’s hand. Dean shouldn’t feel some kind of vicious glee over that, but he does. Deep down in the lowest pits of his chest, he feels vindictively pleased that Cas doesn’t want _anyone_ touching him. He just sits there, shoulder hunched and head bowed and everyone else just stands around doing nothing because no one knows what to fucking do.

Pam turns the pump off when it’s done. Dean wasn’t even watching the tank and Sam and Jess are busy giving each other the worried eyes they’ve perfected over the years. He steps up to the tank Cas is in, squeezing the edge of the glass until his knuckles go white. “Cas, it’s done. You ready?”

He’s barely done speaking before Cas is outright _hissing_ at him, teeth bared and his fins flared like he’s trying to scare Dean off. It’s fucking working. The panicked thoughts that steamroll down the ribbons of the kin-connection don’t hurt nearly as much as the actually words when they hit his head. _(It’s wrong. Wrong! Stay away from me!)_

Dean’s heart joins his stomach somewhere down by his feet when Cas turns away from him and reaches for Sam instead of him, calling for _him_ and not _Dean_. Cas doesn’t usually let anyone else touch him or carry him – not when Dean is right here, completely available and willing. From the very beginning Cas picked him over everyone else – Cas made him feel special and needed and now… now… now what is he?

Sam’s not the only one who looks surprised by Cas’s choice and Dean hopes to a pie filled heaven that none of the hurt that’s making his ribs pinch around his lungs is showing on his face. But Sam knows him. If he doesn’t already know how much Dean is hating himself right now, he’ll figure it out soon enough.

That hurt gets worse, moving up into Dean’s throat and making it hard to breathe as he has to  watch Cas hide his face against _Sam’s_ shoulder and curls his tail around _Sam’s_ waist. He has to curl his hands into fists to keep them from shaking.

“Pam, he wants you to look at his back now.” Sam grunts, shifting on his feet to take all of Cas’s weight without falling over.

“Sure thing.” She steps over, pretending to roll up her sleeves. “Where did Lilith get him?”

It takes a second for Dean to process that she’s talking to _him_. “It’s… between his fans.” He makes an aborted move to step closer and reach out and _touch_. Dean only got to touch that little bit when he was holding Cas earlier and how did he already fuck that up? Don’t tell him he’s not even going to be allowed that now. “Here, I can… It’s right –”

“No!” Cas’s back-fins snap out and Dean jerks his hand back so they don’t hit him.

He can feel something inside his chest crumple when Cas outright says that _he’s_ not allowed to touch. It still manages to surprise him, still manages to confuse him and that something in his chest falls apart. The empty space left behind floods with anger and Dean doesn’t even stop to think before he shoves it into the fucking kin-connection as hard as he can just to see Cas flinch from it in pain, just so he’ll _know_ how much Dean hates what’s happening now.

Cas cuts the kin-connection with him immediately and Dean nearly staggers under the sudden weight of being entirely alone in his own damn head. It’s so quiet, so empty. He hates it.

“Fine. Fuckin’ _fine_.” The words come out more like a snarl than he wants them to.

Dean turns away, slumping against the side of the main tank with his arms crossed. He doesn’t have the magic ability like Cas does to just close his mind to everyone and not be able to understand what’s being said. But he can think really, really loudly – loud enough to drown out everyone else – and not pay attention to what they’re saying, filling his head with self-hate and all the anger he has. Anger at him, at Cas, at Sam and Pam and Jess. Mostly he’s pissed at himself for fucking up whatever he had with Cas.

He’s too caught up with thinking about how much he hates himself for all of this – because somehow saying that Cas was sexy blew everything out of the goddamn water – to notice that Pam is talking to him now. He looks up from glaring at the floor and Sam and Jess are helping Cas into the water and Pam is giving him the sympathetic eyes now. At some point, she relocated to right in front of him.

“Angelfish got you in the dumps?” She’s talking gently, her hand on his arm.

But Dean’s still pissed at everything. He doesn’t want her touching him, he doesn’t want – fuck he doesn’t even know what he _does_ want let alone what he doesn’t. Cas’s is in his head and turning everything upside down and inside out and Dean doesn’t even know what to _think_ anymore. But he can’t let Pam know. If she knows, she’ll tell Sam and Jess and they’ll want to _talk_ and he doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

If anyone is going to talk to him, he wants it to be Cas and he wants him to explain what the hell he did wrong. Too bad that’s not how the world works. Cas isn’t talking to him. He’s shutting Dean out completely for a stupid little comment that set off another kind of panic attack.

Dean forces a smile, but he doesn’t need to be a genius to see that Pam doesn’t believe it. “No. I’m not bothered at all. What gave you that idea?”

“What did you say to him that –”

“I really don’t wanna talk about it, Pam.” She raises her eyebrows and he shakes her head, trying to keep a small smile in place. “Sorry, but I’m pretty sure that dinner is done.”

Pam snorts and rolls her eyes, tugging at his arm to turn him toward the door. Hah, as if he wasn’t going to walk her to the door in the first place. Bobby taught him better than that. Hell, Dean even gets the door for her – because he is a _gentleman_ even when he’s not feeling like being all that gentlemanly right now.

Dean leans on the handle and shoves a hand through his hair, leaving his hand on his neck because he doesn’t know what else to do with it and having his arm up keeps Cas out of his peripheral vision. He feels like a dick for kicking Pam out now, but whatever is going on with Cas is between _them_. If he can, he’s going to send Sam and Jess out too. They’re probably going to stop him if he tries jumping into the tank and nearly drowning himself again to get Cas to just freaking _talk_ to him.

“Yeah, Winchester, you sure do look like he’s not getting to you.” Pam tilts her head and gives him a teasing little grin that softens pretty quick. “If you need someone to talk to, you know my door is always open.” She steps in even closer and Dean knows exactly what she’s going to do before she even starts leaning up.

He should stop her. He shouldn’t let her kiss him when Pam isn’t the one he wants to be kissing and the one he _does_ want to kiss is probably watching them from the tank. And that vindictive feeling fills him again. Dean lets the kiss happen, he even slides his hand down her arm and cups her elbow to pull her in just that little more while he leans into it.

Pam takes a slow step back and Dean frowns at her when she pats him on the cheek. He doesn’t like how amused she looks right now. There’s really nothing to smile about right now and he pulls the door open the moment she’s out of the way.

She leans up again, this time to whisper something in his ear. “If that doesn’t get his priorities straight, my doors is _always_ open.”

The ass-grab and audible leer actually forces a laugh or two out of him and he grabs her wrist. Dean shakes his head and gives her a small smile. “Not really in the mood, Pam. Rain check?”

“Always.” She laughs and shrugs, waving at the others before waltzing out of the room.

Dean waits a moment before he shuts the door and leans back against it. He takes a deep breath before looking up at, looking right at Cas and taking him in without letting it punch him in the chest – he’s kinda failing at that.

Cas is – Cas looks – he looks like he doesn’t know what to feel. He looks like he’s about to cry; eyes wide, face red, lips pressed tight and trembling. He’s completely still except for the light fluttering of his gills and Dean doesn’t understand _why_. Cas shouldn’t be allowed to look like Dean just kicked him in the stomach, especially not after the shit he just pulled.

Dean opens his mouth to say something, anything. But Cas is in a tank full of water and he’s got his radio completely turned off. There’s no way he’s going to hear or understand a damn thing Dean says. And he looks like if Dean even tries to do anything, he’s going to end up having another panic attack.

This is just so fucking _stupid_ and it’s Dean’s fault and he doesn’t know how to fix it because he doesn’t know what really set Cas off. This is so _frustrating_. Dean presses his lips together to keep from saying anything for Sam and Jess to hear – jerking away from the door and from looking at Cas because he still doesn’t know what to do.

“Sam, grab the hose. We gotta empty this.” Dean gestures at the small tank, dropping into a crouch next to the pump to change the settings from ‘fill’ to ‘empty’.

He knows Sam hesitates and that they’re both itchy to find out what the hell he said. Whatever’s keeping them from asking deserves a pat on the back, a kiss on the cheek, and the swankiest scotch money can buy. No one actually _talks_ while they’re drain the tank and Sam even helps him push the damn thing back into the storage room down the hall. Cas is easy enough to ignore right now while he’s not doing anything interesting beyond swimming in goddamn circles with his eyes closed.

Dean does his damnedest not to pay any attention to him. If Cas is going to shut him out, then two can play at this game. Which is why he goes to bed pretty much right after Jess and Sam leave, even though it’s ridiculously early and he’s not actually even remotely tired. It’s just easier to stare at the wall in the dark than it is to stare at the wall when the room is bright as hell. It’s pretty trippy though, to have Cas glowing like a deep-sea light bulb and it’s casting refracting patterns all over the wall.

However long later, Dean’s on the verge of actually falling asleep when the speakers beep and Cas says his name. It jerks him awake and Dean nearly turns over on reflex but he stops himself, refusing to give Cas anything after the shit he pulled without a goddamn explanation.

“Dean.” Cas says it again and he hunches his shoulders to it, trying to block out that stupid, friggen _addicting_ voice. “Dean, _please_.”

And that makes Dean move. Cas sounds hurt, he sounds desperate and Dean reacts before he can even think of ignoring him again. The tight tension at the base of his throat that feels an awful lot like worry spreads out into his chest when he sees Cas bent over and hugging his stomach while his fins keep spreading and folding, and spreading and folding.

He turns the lights on and grabs the headset, crouching next to where Cas is curled against the glass. Dean knocks on the wall to get Cas’s attention before turning on the headset. “Cas? What’s wrong?”

Cas looks up at him slowly and his whole expression is radiating pain and that worry is starting to turn into panic. Is he sick? Hurt? Was it something Dean did? Lilith? The food? Dean sucks in a breath when he feels that first squeeze of aching pressure in his temples and part of the worry lifts until the pressure slips away without breaking properly and there’s still that _silence_ in Dean’s head.

“Please.” Cas whimpers into the microphone, letting go of his stomach long enough to point at the bucket standing by the door.

He needs that? What for? Dean goes and gets it. “You sick?”

“Hurt.” Cas answers.

Fuck the bucket, Dean is back at the side of the tank and looking Cas over for anywhere that he could be bleeding or bruised or just fucking _something_. “You’re hurt? Where? How? Do you want me to get Pam?”

Cas presses his forehead to the glass and fuck, he looks like he’s in so much pain and Dean doesn’t know what to do. If this was Sam, he’d find a bottle of Tylenol or take him to a hospital – but he can’t do that here. Who the hell knows what would happen to Cas if he gave him a medication and the closest thing they have to a hospital is Pam. He’s half-standing and ready to run across the fucking boat to get her when Cas damn near _hisses_ his answer.

“ _No Pamela_.” What the hell? Pam could help. She might know what the hell is actually wrong with him but Cas just shakes his head and points at the bucket again. “Please.”

Fine. If Cas wants to throw up in that, Dean will get it for him. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to give it over that easily. Though he doubts that decision when he sees how hard it is for Cas to swim right now. It takes him forever to get up to where Dean’s waiting on the platform with the bars up and the bucket nowhere near where Cas would be able to reach it even with the arm he’s stretching over the wall.

“No.” He steps back, keeping it out of reach.

Cas’s head-fins flare and he frowns. “Dean, please.”

“Sure, after the kin-connection is up.” Dean taps his temple just in case the meaning of the words don’t make it through. “Kin-connection, Cas.”

He bites his lip and looks away for a moment, tail curling up between him and the glass. It’s probably the closest thing to a fetal position he can do. Cas shakes his head. “No. Bucket.”

If this is going to be a battle of wills, Cas is going to win. All he has to do is pull the puppy look, even if he doesn’t know what that is, and Dean is going to cave. He’s already verging on that and he’s hurting and Dean wants to help but he wants to know what the fuck is going on too.

Dean crosses his arms and tries to look as stern as he can while he’s worried and frustrated out of his frikken mind. “No, Cas. _Kin-connection_. You said you’re hurt and I want to know what’s going on. And guess what – there’s this whole thing where you don’t speak English and I don’t speak Atlantean or whatever the hell you call your language. If you’re sick and something’s hurting you, Cas, I need to know. Now set up the damn kin-connection before I climb in there and have to nearly kill myself to get you to do it, _again_.”

Cas just shakes his head and makes a grabbing motion for the bucket. “ _Dean_. Bucket. _Please_. Bucket. Dean. Door.”

He’s got to be fucking joking. Cas is _kicking him out_? Whatever the hell is going on – whatever the hell Dean did to piss Cas off – it’s enough that Cas doesn’t even want him around anymore? Is that it? How the fuck did ‘you’re being sexy and distracting’ turn into this? Was it that and because Dean is the entire reason Cas has the chip in his back now? If he’d been able to stop himself – if he hadn’t fucking kissed him – Lilith never would’ve done that.

And there’s the goddamn anger again. He’s fucking _tired_ of being angry. At himself, at Cas, at Lilith, at _everything_. Dean’s head is empty and he wants that alien light at the edge of his mind again but Cas isn’t giving it to him and he’s the only one that can. But Dean fucked up and he’s not even sure exactly _how_ and Cas is just pushing him away without telling him anything. It’s terrifying and it’s the last thing that Dean wants.

He wants – Why the fuck doesn’t he know what he wants? Why is everything a great big question mark when it comes to Cas? It’s driving him fucking crazy and Cas is trying to drive him away and he doesn’t know what to fucking _do_.

What he does know is that Cas doesn’t want him here. Fine. Then he’ll just leave. Maybe he shouldn’t have thrown the bucket – at least he didn’t thrown it at Cas – but Dean thinks that slamming the door is completely called for. He stands out in the hallway for a bit, the headset turned off and hanging around his neck.

Now what? He’s still pissed and he can’t go back in there when Cas doesn’t even want him there. If Cas doesn’t want him around, then he can be alone for the rest of the night. Dean doesn’t need to be alone. There’s an open door and an open bed and a rain check he can take instead. And Pam’s kind of sex might not always be his slice of pie, but it’ll sure as hell get his mind off of… off of all _this_.

Get his mind off Cas and maybe make everything hurt less just for a little while.


	11. Regretting it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 9.**

It’s who-the-fuck-knows-how-many hours later when Dean drags himself back to the room. He aches in places a man with his libido should never ache, but that’s just one of Pam’s many dangerous talents. His back is going to sting for hours and everything else is going to stick around for days.

That’s not even the worst part.

The worst part is - he still feels like shit. Angry sex did _nothing_ to make him feel better about Cas shutting him out. If anything, it made him feel _worse_.

Dean should be sleepy. He should be tired as all hell. The sun is going to be coming up any moment and he hasn’t slept all night. There’ll still be a few hours before anyone comes to do anything in the tank room and he could probably grab a few hours – if he’s lucky. But no part of him wants to sleep. His brain won’t shut off and it keeps going back to _what the hell did he do?_ It keeps trying to think about _why_ angry sex didn’t work and Dean doesn’t want to think about it because he knows the answer and it shouldn’t be _that_ answer.

Angry sex is only really therapeutic when you’re having it with the one you’re angry with.

No. Brain, _stop_. Dean groans and actually _slinks_ into the room, shutting the door as quietly as he can. Cas looks like he’s sleeping sitting up, hugging his tail to his chest resting his forehead against what would probably be his knees or something if he was human.

Somewhere Dean needs to draw the line. Cas _isn’t_ human and Dean shouldn’t be wanting him like one. He shouldn’t want that completely alien and _unnatural_ feeling of having someone else in his head. He shouldn’t want to _touch_ or do any of the other things that he wants to do to Cas. If only it ended at that.

Dean wants to do so much _more_. He wants to take Cas for a drive in the impala, show him Bobby’s house and the closest thing to ‘his room’ he’s had since he was four years old. He wants to make his special hamburgers – the ones that Sam will drive halfway across the country for – so he can see Cas go apeshit for them. He wants to get out his guitar and write an accompaniment to every song that Cas sings. He wants to do silly things with Cas and listen to him laugh and it’s all so fucking _stupid_.

He hasn’t wanted anything like that since Cassie and he’s met plenty of people since he got out of jail, been on plenty of dates and he hasn’t once just _clicked_ with someone like he has Cas. And Cas isn’t even human. He’s someone – something – that Dean can’t have, can’t keep. And it hurts. It hurts so fucking bad that Dean can’t even look at him, turning around to lean his forehead against the closed door while blindly putting the headset on the counter.

Dean fumbles at the light switch, sliding it down the track to dim the lights. He could turn them off completely, but he knows Cas can’t see through the glass properly when the room is completely dark and his glow keeps getting reflected back at him. After the shit Cas pulled today, Dean really shouldn’t be so considerate but he just can’t help himself.

He could nap in his pajamas, but even though he wasn’t wearing them when he was actually doing the deed, they still feel dirty. Dean’s having trouble wrapping his head around why it feels like he cheated when he didn’t do anything wrong. He’s not in a committed relationship with anyone – especially not _Cas_ and everything is just so fucking messed up. And he can’t even think of where it went wrong. Was it the kiss? Before that? After? He doesn’t _know_.

After changing into a new set of boxers and his jeans, he pulls off his t-shirt and winces. There are probably scratch marks all down his back and he knows there are hickeys and bite marks all over his shoulders and chest. Pam has always been more on the rough side than Dean prefers, but he really needed it tonight and it sucks that it didn’t help him feel any better.

Dean barely has his shirt off – hasn’t even dropped it yet – when that pressure builds and breaks in his temples faster than it ever has before. Suddenly there’s so much _anger_ and worry in his head and none of it is his. There’s flashes of his back and shoulders and all of Pam’s marks somewhere in that storm of emotion and his brain fills with Cas’s voice-but-not-a-voice. _(Who hurt you?!)_

He turns around so quickly he damn near trips over his own feet and has to catch himself on his makeshift dresser. His heart damn near pops right out through his rib cage because _Cas is awake_. Dean doesn’t even stop to wonder how long Cas has been watching him or if he saw his ass or anything like that. Instead, his brain switches gears from surprised straight to _pissed beyond reason_.

Cas isn’t allowed to shut him out like he did earlier and literally tell him to get out of the room. He’s not allowed to do that and then just _demand_ anything that he wants from him _._ It doesn’t work like that and Dean isn’t going to put up with it. If Cas wants to talk to him, he’s going to have to apologize and give a goddamn explanation for what the hell happened earlier before Dean even so much as says anything.

Dean tries pulling away from the kin-connection. He tries to shut Cas out like Cas did to him but Cas isn’t having it either. When it comes to this freaky mind-meld, Cas is the one with the mojo magic to make it work. He’s the one who knows what it can do and how to use it and he’s not letting go. Cas digs into Dean’s head, his stubborn refusal to let go nearly frikken tangible and it actually hurts. It’s like a vice squeezing around his head and he presses his hand to his temple like that’s going to do anything to get rid of it.

When he looks up again, Cas is right there on the other side of the glass, his hands pressed to the wall and all his fins are flared crazy wide, but he still looks worried as hell while glancing him over. _(Dean. Who hurt you?)_

He doesn’t want to answer. He doesn’t want to say a damn thing to Cas right now and he definitely doesn’t want to tell him he just had rough sex with Pam. Dean can perfectly picture how Cas looked after Pam had only kissed him and trying to imagine what he’d look like after telling him _that_ would just – it makes something in Dean’s chest hurt more than his head does. Yeah, he’ll put off telling him that for as long as he can.

Trying to push Cas out of his head is like trying to push against a brick wall. It’s not doing him any good and if Dean didn’t want his answers, he’d cut those ribbons their brains completely. He can’t even get enough concentration to put up any walls between them so he can take a chance to actually _think_. But Cas isn’t giving him the chance. He’s just letting everything – the worry, the anger, the _whywhywhy_ – crash straight into Dean’s head and something’s gonna give eventually and Dean doesn’t want it to be him.

On reflex, he throws the shirt at Cas. It hits the glass, but Cas still jerks away as a flare of surprise echoes along the ribbons as a break in that tidal wave of everything else. It’s enough for Dean to get walls up to protect himself and he damn near sags in relief once it’s silent again. He’s not alone in his head – which is nice – but it’s quiet and the lingering pain from Cas’s overenthusiastic assault is slowly fading.

Cas actually _growls_. It’s nothing but a muted rumble from the other side of the glass, but Dean can sorta hear it in his head, rolling against the walls keeping Cas’s crazy emotions out. He looks frustrated and unhappy and Dean can’t help but vindictively think; _good_. Cas even slaps the glass, his tail mimicking the movement and beating the floor.

_(Who hurt you? Where did you go? Dean!)_

He’s not going to answer and Cas can’t make him. Dean flips him the bird before pulling on his shirt and getting into bed. It’s going to be uncomfortable as hell to sleep with jeans on, but he’s got practice doing it and it’s only for a few hours anyway. He tugs the blanket up over his shoulders and puts his back to Cas, ignoring the banging on the glass.

_(If you don’t tell me, I’ll just ask Sam or Jess.)_

The blackmailing little shit.

Dean rolls over and doesn’t keep any of the venom out of his glare. _(Fuck you, Castiel.)_ Using his full name feels weird but he can actually _see_ how it hits Cas and makes him stop. _(You can’t just fuck off on me like you did today without telling me what I did that make you freak out or letting me try and fix it, and then expect me to answer you like it’s your goddamn_ right _to know every little thing that happens to me.)_

The fans along Cas’s tail ripple and the end starts twisting back and forth. From what Dean’s learned over the last week, Cas does that when he’s uncertain about something. But it only lasts for a few seconds before Cas is straight faced and stubborn as a fucking mule again. _(Who hurt you?)_

 _(You did.)_ Dean isn’t going to sugarcoat it. Yeah, he’s hurt that Cas kicked him out of the room and pulled back from him like he did today. It’s a stinging pain in his chest atht won’t go away and he hates talking about his feelings but he hates being hurt like this even more. He rolls over again so he doesn’t have to look at Cas. _(I’m not telling you anything until you explain what happened this afternoon. And I swear to God, Cas, if you close the kin-connection – if you push me away like that again, don’t bother trying to mind-melt with me anymore. Anything you have to say to me after that can just go through Sam or Jess or whoever else you want to talk to.)_

In the silence that follows that, Dean tries really hard not to have a panic attack that Cas might actually pick that option. Whatever happened in the afternoon was enough to freak Cas out that he didn’t even want Dean to touch him. What if this ultimatum is just what Can needs to take the kin-connection away from him completely? After a week, Dean’s not sure if he can stand being the only one inside his head again. It’s too quiet, too dark, and too lonely and _fuck_ , what if he just fucked everything up again?

He tries not to react to the splashing noises. It’s really hard not to because he is _so_ tempted to look over his shoulder and see what the hell Cas is doing. The only time Dean does roll over is when he hears the bars over the tank clang open. Dean is on his feet and around the tank before Cas is even finished coughing up the water from his lungs. Is he _trying_ to get himself killed or something? Cas can’t get out of the tank on his own like that.

 _(What the hell are you doing?)_ He steps up onto the platform and puts his hands on Cas’s shoulders to push him back in. _(Christ, Cas, you’re gonna fall and break an arm or something!)_

“No.” Cas honest to God _hisses_ and the moment Dean is in reach, he grabs him by the shirt. Dean isn’t really expecting to be pulled forward. He could easily stop it, but Cas looks – Jesus, he looks _desperate_. _(I want to explain, but not through the glass.)_

Cas gets his arms around Dean’s shoulders as soon as he’s close enough and presses his face against his neck. Dean can feel the goosebumps chasing down his arms and under his shirt and it has _nothing_ to do with the water Cas is dripping all over him. Even the shiver has nothing to do it with that. It’s all Cas’s breath on his neck and the head-fin against his jaw and everything in between. Goddammit.

Dean sighs and watches the way the fans on his tail ripple as Cas keeps inching forward over the glass. Now that he’s got Dean supporting his upper half, he’s flipped the end of his tail over the wall and it’s just everything from the hips down still in the tank. If he manages to get the main part of his tail over the edge, Cas is going to drag him down too when he falls. Dean automatically steps closer and puts his arms around Cas’s waist to steady him and keep that from happening. He only hesitates after the fact when he realizes what he just did.

It’s tiring having to keep half his focus on those imagined walls in the kin-connection. It’s even more exhausting trying to still be angry with Cas. Especially when he’s leaning all over Dean with all that smooth skin and salt-sea smell and – and – and Dean is fucking _doomed_. Right from the moment he jumped in the tank to get Cas to trust him. Doomed.

He drops the walls and it’s kind of a relief. There’s no more need to focus, and Cas’s emotions – the regret and confusion and worry, hell even the anger – they’re all so familiar and Dean soaks it up like no tomorrow. Warning lights are going off somewhere in his head, trying to tell him that this is a bad idea but Dean doesn’t really care. It’s hard to care about anything else when he’s actually allowed to _touch_. Maybe not in the way that he wants to touch, but it’s still touching nonetheless.

 _(I think… I’m not sure how to – hold on, let’s do this like…)_ Dean doesn’t bother keeping his emotions in check. He lets everything out while he struggles to get Cas out of the tank and in his arms bridal style. The only things he doesn’t share are the more private thoughts and feelings, the ones that even _he_ doesn’t understand quite yet.

Once he’s got Cas fully in his arms, staggering slightly under his weight, Cas pumps a new image to the kin-connection. His bed. Cas wants to go to _his bed_. Why is the entire universe against him? That’s just not fair.

 _(Are you kidding me? That’s all the way on the other side of the room. Can’t you just tell me here?)_ Don’t make him take Cas to his bed. It was bad enough lying there with him when Cas was upset by the GPS tag Lilith stuck in his back. Having to do that again is going to be torture, especially when Cas isn’t in tears and Dean’s self-hate is only simmering on low at the moment.

 _(No. Not here. I want you to take me to your bed.)_ Cas squeezes his arms tighter around Dean’s shoulders. _(Please?)_

Dean can’t help the small laugh or being amused. It’s a cynical kind of amusement, but still better than how frikken _pissed_ he’d been earlier. Anything feels better than that. As in shape as Dean is, he’s still way too tired to lug around another person. Especially when he’s still sore from the few rounds he managed with Pam.

As soon as he’s standing next to the bed, he leans forward to dump Cas on the far side. He’s mostly dripped dry by now and Dean doesn’t really have a problem with damp sheets anyways. Dean drops onto his back next to him, draping an arm over his eyes and slinging his legs over Cas’s tail where it’s folded across the bed and hanging over the edge.

_(And I’m going to have to do that to get you back in the damn thing, aren’t I?)_

He can feel Cas shifting around next to him. _(I could crawl over to the platform if you’d prefer.)_

The thought of Cas pushing himself around the floor again nearly makes him shudder. _(Fuck that. The floor is dirty a hell and you’ll get your scales all mussed up. Why’d we have to do this over here again?)_

Dean is trying very hard not to move his arm and look at Cas. He keeps moving his hands or his arms or something and it’s driving Dean a little crazy not knowing what it is. _(I wanted to talk to you without the wall between us – both the physical and the mental one. Your bed is soft and comfortable. This seemed like the most appropriate location.)_

Nope, can’t do it. He moves his arm up enough that he can see Cas propped up on his elbows and fidgeting with the edge of the pillow. _(Thanks for the consideration, I guess.)_ Cas glances away and that reminds Dean of earlier and that painful feeling in his chest comes, bringing everything else along with it. _(So, what the hell happened this afternoon?)_

Cas bites his lip and lays down with his arms crossed under his head, facing the wall instead of looking at him. Something like nervousness brushes along the ribbons of the kin-connection and that’s something that Dean can understand. It takes a few minutes before Cas calls up a memory from earlier.

 _(Yeah, Cas, I know what I said. What I_ don’t _know is why it made you hate me.)_

 _(I don’t_ hate _you! I was just…)_ The fins on Cas’s back and head flare out and he looks over at Dean sharply before he groans and hides his face in his arms. _(This is very difficult to explain.)_

 _(Try me.)_ He needs to know.

It takes Cas a long time to say anything else and there’s a whole bunch of emotions Dean doesn’t even try to figure out. He damn near has a heart attack when Cas finally says the last thing Dean expected him to say.

_(Do you find me attractive?)_

Dean drops his arm to his chest and turns his head to look at him. _(Do I find you… what?)_

_(… Attractive?)_

Oh Jesus, does Cas know? _(Where is this even –)_

 _(Please, just answer.)_ Cas sounds desperate.

He looks over when Dean looks up at the ceiling and runs his hand through his hair. _(I’ve already told you that if we ignore your fish-bits that you’re pretty cute by human standards. So yeah, I do think you’re attractive. Why?)_

_(If it wasn’t because I don’t think it’ll happen again, if it was because you wanted to… Would you kiss me again?)_

Thank sweet pie, Cas doesn’t know – or at least he doesn’t know everything. But Dean thinks he’s starting to understand what Cas is getting at and why he freaked out earlier. He knows that Cas is only figured out his sexuality a few days ago and now he’s got a human making lewd comments at him. Of course that would make someone freak out.

 _(Do you… Do you_ want _me to kiss you again?)_ He crosses his fingers and tries not to let any of his hope into the kin-connection while he looks back at Cas steadily.

_(I don’t know.)_

Well, at least he’s honest. It takes another few minutes before Cas shoves a ton of emotions into the kin-connection and Dean struggles to sort them out. He pulls them apart one by one, sifting through them like he would with untangling Christmas tree lights. Cas waits while Dean picks apart the emotions and the sensations and spreads them out so he can take a good look at them all one by one and –

“Oh.”

That last one is more than just physical attraction and it shuts Dean’s brain down completely. He wasn’t expecting that, or that fluttering feeling that spreads through his chest and makes him feel like he’s floating. It’s fucking terrifying. He can feel Cas poking at this thoughts, checking to see if he’s okay. Thing is – Dean’s not sure if he is.

Cas is starting to feel _something_ for him and that’s awesome, but at the same time it sucks. It’s one of the worst possible things that could happen to either of them given this clusterfuck of a situation and there’s that whole _different species_ thing. That floating feeling goes away like someone took a pin to it and popped it like a goddamn balloon. Neither of them can afford to get any deeper into this when Dean knows – when they _both_ know – that Cas isn’t going to be sticking around. Either they get Cas back into the big blue and he goes home, or Lilith wins and Dean has to risk exposing Cas and his entire colony to the rest of the world while trying to get him free, or he spends the rest of his life plagued with guilt for not being able to save him.

Fuck.

Why is nothing ever easy?

They’re going to have to work through this slowly. And Dean really isn’t looking forward to that. And at some point Dean is going to have to get out of Cas what the hell happened earlier. 


	12. The Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 10.**

Every time Lilith touches Cas, Dean feels sick. He actually feels sick straight down to his stomach. The I’m-going-to-throw-up-all-over-your-insanely-expensive-office-if-you-touch-him-once-more kind of sick. The last time he felt like this, he had just found Sam’s stash and realized he and Bobby were going to have to do an intervention. But this time, it’s not fear he feels mixed in with that sick feeling, because this time he’s not scared of losing his little brother. No, this time it’s fucking _anger_. It’s a burn in his chest that’s so vicious it almost scares him.

And the way Cas keeps submitting, bowing his head and flattening all his fins and just _letting_ her do it. Fuck. _Fuck_. Dean wants to shake some sense into him. He wants to shove Lilith overboard, throw Cas after her, and let Lilith see just how _wrong_ she is to try and make someone like Cas her goddamn _pet_.

Anytime Lilith says anything to Cas, he shares it with Dean. Which is good, coz’ Dean would hate it even more if he had no idea what Lilith was putting into Cas’s head. Though he’d probably hate that less than he does the things she actually tells Cas. Hell, she just told him to keep his dorsal fins folded back because it’ll make him look less threatening. Which is fucking _bullshit_. Cas looks awesome when all his fins are spread wide.

Lilith pushes her fingers into Cas’s hear and that hard knot of hate flares down into the pit of Dean’s stomach again. He really doesn’t like it when Lilith touches Cas the same way _he_ touches Cas – for what few times he’s even gotten to touch him. It’s hard enough for Dean to keep his hands off Cas, and it’s only going to get worse now that Cas more or less admitted he likes Dean in _that_ way – Jesus, Mary, Mother of God what’s he supposed to even _do_ with that?

“Oh, salt water has _ruined_ your hair.” Lilith makes little tsking noises, twirling strands of Cas’s hair between her fingers and Dean has to dig _his_ fingers into his arms to keep from reaching out and pulling her out of touching range. “We’ll have to try and fix that. We’ll get you shampooed and styled when you’re brought out into the party. We can’t have you sitting around looking like you just washed up on the shore.”

Dean covers his disbelieving snort with a cough. He reaches along the ribbons of the kin-connection, ignoring how they’re trembling with Cas’s discomfort. There’s nothing he can do to stop that, not while Lilith keeps touching him.

_(Don’t pay any attention to her. You look fine. The way your hair gets kinda curly when it’s drying is cute.)_

Cas immediately ducks his head. Dean nearly misses the pleased flicker in their link and the small twitch, that could almost be a smile, at the corner of Cas’s mouth. The burning in his chest starts falling away slowly. It was meant to be just another throw-away compliment – coz’ he’s oh so good at hiding behind those – but Dean is a little surprised to find that he actually, kinda, really… _means_ it.

He likes Cas’s hair and the way the tips curl while it dries. It’s thick and coarse and Dean doesn’t even really care about that. It would probably be softer once washed, and one day – if he ever gets the chance – he’d love to see what that feels like. But he likes Cas just the way he is and Lilith is such a _bitch_ for telling him to change.

Lilith says something to Cas and it sends surprise pulsing sharp into Dean’s head as Cas’s head-fins flare wide. Dean almost takes a step forward to defend him for whatever reason he might need to. But he catches himself at the last second the moment Cas shares what Lilith said.

 _(She wants me to sing.)_ Cas sounds so hesitant, like he doesn’t know what to sing – rather, he probably just doesn’t want to sing. He even opens and closes his mouth a few times as indecision makes the ribbons between them vibrate.

Dean hates it when Cas feels like that. It makes him want to do anything that he can to help him stop feeling that way. He shoves his hands in his pockets to keep himself from curling his fingers into fists as he steps up next to Lilith. “Is it okay if I take care of his tail while he does that?”

It hasn’t even been thirty minutes since Sam gave Cas a light sprinkling back in the tank room. Cas probably doesn’t need it right now – not for another hour or so at least. But Dean wants to do something for him. He wants to do anything he can to make him more comfortable. The best that he can think of – that he can do right now, short of kicking everyone’s ass and dragging Cas back out to the deck – is to give him the comfort of water.

Lilith gives him a narrow-eyed look that sets his teeth on edge before she pushes back, making room. She grants her permission with a flick of her wrist and Dean sinks to his knees next to Cas. He completely ignores the cup floating in the bucket and doesn’t think twice about cupping the water in his hands, letting it drip through his fingers over Cas’s scales.

The water pools in the folds of the ruffled fans that run along the length of Cas’s tail. Dean takes all of two seconds to think about it before he dips his fingers into the  little puddles and drags the water around. He rubs it into the webbing until the fans are loose and pliable – though they were pretty supple to start with, but no one really needs to know that. It’s like he… he just can’t help himself. Touching Cas is addicting, almost as addicting as having him in his head via this mind-meld of a kin-connection.

He can see the way Cas’s fingers are twitching in his lap. It’s so slight Cas probably doesn’t even notice it’s happening. There’s confusion tripping slightly along the edge of his mind and Dean knows it’s because he’s being a little weird. He’s never been this focused on keeping Cas damp before. But, to be fair, before now he’d never done it right after spending a few hours with Cas sleeping curled against his side and his mind practically vibrating with content. And he’s especially never done this for Cas right after Cas admitted that he – well – Dean’s still having trouble accepting exactly _what_ Cas admitted.

It’s not so much the _what_ as it is the ‘is this really happening’? He’d been covering his own ass when he’d told Cas that wasn’t what he was looking for right now. Which is mostly true, because he’s _not_. But if Cas keeps worming his way in, if Dean wants him more than he already does – Jesus, he’s going to be so fucking _screwed_. Because Cas can’t stay. Cas is going to go home when they get him out of here and Dean already hates the thought of Cas leaving and right now they’re only friends – cuddle buddies, if he wants to get specific.

Warm breath brushes against the back of his neck and Lilith’s perfume, which is disgustingly pungent, snaps his thoughts back to the task at hand. “Why are you using the cup?”

“I get less water on your furniture and floor this way.” Dean keeps his voice flat and he doesn’t look at her.

Not even Cas knows that he’s only using his hands because he really just wants to touch him. God, it’s like a fucking _disease_ and it goes against everything they talked about last night – er, this morning. He’s a dumbass and he doesn’t care. Cas is uncomfortable being around Lilith and the douche-brigade, but he gets comfort out of touch and Dean can’t even quantify just how much he’s willing to give him that.

And that kind of scares him.

“Oh, I don’t care about that. I’m going to have everything cleaned and that ottoman thrown out anyway.” Lilith sighs, more hot air fluttering against the back of his neck. It sends chills racing down his spine, and they aren’t the good kind. “It’s going to reek of fish.”

Dean scrunches his nose and he can feel his mouth twist because that’s not true. _(You don’t smell like fish.)_

 _(I wouldn’t consider it an insult if I did.)_ That’s practically a mental shrug Cas gives and Dean knows he’s watching every movement he makes.

 _(But you_ eat _fish.)_

Cas’s thoughts flicker unhappily as Lilith demands he sing again. But he basically ignores her, eyes on Dean’s hands as he moves them and the water down his tail. Dean has to uncurl Cas from the base of the ottoman, pulling the end of it into his lap to get at the rounded caudal fans.

_(They swim in the same waters as I do, and they have the same kind of scales as I do. It would only be insulting if she was comparing my intelligence to one.)_

Dean wants to correct him. Cas has snake scales, not fish scales. But there are sea-snakes, right? Maybe Cas thinks those are another kind of fish. Or hell, there might be some kind of weird undiscovered deep-sea fish that has snake scales and that’s what Cas is referring to. Or there could be other fin-kin breeds that actually have fish scales and that’s what Cas means. This is one of those ‘different species’ things that he’s just going to have to let slide.

Lilith is practically yelling Cas’s name into his head and Cas keeps letting it slide straight into Dean’s. He’s thinking hard about what song to sing, but he’s basically just staring at Dean’s hands. It makes Dean laugh. Just a small little huff and he looks up at Cas from under his lashes. It makes him feel like a girl mooning at her crush, but he’s got to keep the look secretive. If Lilith or the others see him smiling up at Cas, they could be in trouble.

He’s not really expecting Cas to be looking at _him_ and not his hands. Dean meets his eyes and all that confusion and indecision just vanishes from Cas’s thoughts. He opens his mouth and Dean’s attention narrows down to the way Cas’s lips form around the tones and odd alien words of the fin-kin.

There aren’t that many words, at least not that Dean can pick out. As it is, Dean is more focused on all the emotion poured into the rising and falling notes of Cas’s song. He’s singing for something like thirty seconds before Dean realizes his hands have stopped moving, fingers stalled on the bend of Cas’s tail.

This song is different from all the ones he’s heard so far. There was the first song he’d heard – the lonely song, and then there was that lullaby Cas sang softly the other night. But this new one is so – Jesus, he doesn’t even have a word for how amazing it is. It’s soft and smooth and it’s sending goosebumps all over Dean’s skin. He’s pretty sure his mouth is hanging open and he doesn’t care.

But there’s something that bugs him about the song. It’s not all the emotion flooding Cas’s voice because that doesn’t bother him nearly as much as it probably should. Something is _off_. Something about it isn’t right, despite how awesome it sounds.

And the song itself has nothing on the expression Cas has. The more he sings, the more gentle he looks. His eyes have softened and he’s practically glowing with a small, gorgeous smile pulling at the corners of his lips. Jesus fucking _Christ_. The way Cas is looking at him – how is he supposed to deal with that?

He’s looking at Dean like Dean is… like he’s not a failure at everything he’s ever done. Like he’s not useless or a manwhore or anything anyone has ever called him. Cas is looking at him like he’s _worth_ something. And that sends Dean’s heart rate through the fucking roof. Suddenly it’s hard to breathe. Something warm – something terrifying – is filling his chest and it’s not even close to being similar to the hate he still feels for Lilith.

And then Cas’s eyes go wide and he stiffens, his fins flaring and he actually looks surprised. He looks like he only just realized what he’s singing. The whole song gets choked off and Cas stutters to a stop. His lips keep twitching, as if he’s going to keep singing, but not another sound passes them.

Dean lets outs a shaky breath. _(Christ, Cas, that was… Dude, that was beautiful.)_ And he’s not just talking about the song.

Cas doesn’t look away, but he closes his mind off. The walls slide up around his thoughts faster than Dean can react and he’s left floundering alone in the kin-connection. He’d object, but then Cas’s breathing hitches and he covers his mouth with one of his hands. His eyes squeeze shut and every warm feeling Dean has after that song gets lost in a surge of concern. Cas looks like he’s going to cry and that scares the ever loving fuck out of him. Especially when Cas curls forward and he ends up leaning his forehead against Dean’s.

 _(Cas? What’s wrong?)_ His fingers tighten over Cas’s tail where his hands rest. He presses his worry against the walls keeping him from hearing anything Cas is thinking. _(You’re hiding from me again. Did the song make you homesick?)_ He has no idea what the song was, but Cas’s reaction to it is fucking terrifying.

He shakes his head and Dean just gets more and more worried. Dean starts brushing his thumbs over Cas’s scales, trying to give him even the smallest bit of comfort. Without Cas’s emotions and thoughts, he doesn’t know if anything is working. But then Cas opens his eyes and he looks so _scared_ that it stops Dean’s blood cold.

Dean sees it coming out of the corner of his eye, barely. The surprised, pained cry Cas makes as he’s pulled back – roughly and by his hair – scares Dean so bad it feels like his heart might stop. But then hands are closing around his shoulders and jerking him back too. Everything’s a blur until he’s slammed face first into the floor and tastes blood on his tongue. There’s a sharp pain in his back and his shoulders burn as his arms are pulled back and folded behind him.

“Dean!” Cas hisses his name – worry practically infused into every letter – and Dean twists, trying to see him.

Lilith is holding him up by his hair and he’s scrabbling at her hand. The ottoman is between him and Cas, but Dean is certain that thumping sound is Cas’s tail slapping around. He twists more, trying to see who could be the douche nozzle sitting on him. He’s got a fifty/fifty chance of guessing who, but he’d like to know which asshat he’s going to have to kick in the teeth when this is over. His neck protests the movement – fuck, whoever is on his back has fucking pointy knees. Somebody moves in his peripheral – shit. It’s Gordon. Which means Alistair is on his back, which means he’s going to be lucky if his arms aren’t as useful as limp noodles when this is over.

It makes his skin crawl knowing he let fucking _Alistair_ get the drop on him.

“Let me go, you son of a bitch! What the _hell_ , Lilith?!” Dean starts squirming, ignoring any pain – and there is a shit-ton of pain with the knee and the strain on his shoulders.

“That’s very much what I’d like to be asking, Dean.” She snaps back at him and her voice is _cold_. If he didn’t hate her so much, he’d be scared of that icy anger. Cas gasps, a little pained noise that makes Dean struggle harder. “What was that sickeningly _touching_ display just now?”

“I don’t know! Cas gets homesick someti–” Alistair twists his arm more, pushing it higher up his back and Dean cuts off with a grunt.

Cas makes more pained noises and there’s a heavy thud. When Dean looks again, Lilith has Cas bent over the ottoman. She’s got his face against the pillows and she’s leaning heavily on his back and Dean has never wanted to hit a woman before, but he’s fairly certain he’s going to be re-evaluating his life rules to make a special exception because Lilith is more monster than woman.

It’s fucking uncomfortable to be pinned like this. Dean’s dad would be chewing him out for letting his guard down like he did just because of a pretty face and a nice song. Hell, he’s already kicking himself for it and he know the guilt for letting Cas get hurt is just waiting around the corner. It’ll hit him as soon as he gets a chance to think and he’ll hate himself for it – especially if Cas gets hurt more.

Dean hisses at the sharp flare of pain that blazes up his arm as Alistair presses his other arm up higher. It’s nothing like getting stabbed, or breaking a bone. But it still _hurts_. He knows Lilith is talking to Cas. He’s not sharing them, but Dean can tell. Then Cas starts snarling and Dean can hear the fabric on the ottoman tearing. Jesus, that’s probably his claws and Dean should _not_ find that hot.

Seriously. He shouldn’t. He’s got Alistair on his back, Gordon pointing one of those damn dart-guns on them, and Lilith is pinning Cas to a chair. The idea of Cas shredding shit with his claws shouldn’t be hitting hot buttons he didn’t really know he had.

“Alistair!” Lilith’s tone is sharp and commanding and Dean’s heart relocates to his throat and his stomach to his feet.

He’s not exactly sure _how_ it happens, but there’s a sharp crack and then Dean’s whole fucking arm is on fire with the sickly familiar burn of a broken bone and dislocated shoulder. Not a single sound leaves him and Dean is actually pretty proud of that. Little lights are bursting behind his eyes and everything gets very fuzzy for an indeterminate amount of time.

It’s Lilith’s scream that brings him crashing back into reality. The weight on his back is suddenly gone and it’s with a surge of relief – and not a small amount of pain – that his arms fall to the floor along his sides. He flinches – wincing against the pain and really he should _stop_ _fucking_ _moving_ – at the crash of something breaking on the floor.

Cas is blurry when Dean looks at him. It takes several moments for him to realize it’s tears making his vision swim and not the pain. Which he supposes is good, maybe. It’s better that it’s tears instead of pain impairing his vision because tears are something he can rub away easy enough. But even those aren’t enough to keep him from seeing just how fucking _angry_ Cas is.

And holy shit, he looks like he could take on a shark without batting an eye. He looks _badass_. It sends a sharp thrill twitching over his ribs and, wow, inappropriate much? Especially since Cas looks… he looks _desperate_.

He’s trying to drag himself towards Dean, but Cas’s arms are starting to wobble. There’s a dart in his shoulder and another in his side and _fuck_. What if a double dose kills him? He’s going to kick the shit out of Gordon for this. Gordon should know better, what with being a goddamn _scientist_ and all that _._

The anger fades from Cas’s face as his eyelids droop and then he just kind of collapses. His arms give out and  he drops heavily onto his side. Cas’s fins fall flat and there’s a soft sigh as the drugs take effect. Dean isn’t really one for praying, but he sends up a little plea. Please, God, don’t let that be Cas’s last breath.

He ignores the pain in his arm, hoping he’s not fucking anything up with it as he gets to his knees. His arm hangs loose along his side, a good few inches longer than it should be. Fucking dislocated shoulders. That’s going to hurt like a kick in the nuts when it gets popped back in and  he is so not looking forward to that. He holds his left arm to his side with his right hand and shuffles over to where Cas is laying. It’s barely more than a few feet.

“Don’t touch him, Winchester.”

“Fuck you, Gordon.” He snaps back, not even looking. Dean presses his fingers to Cas’s throat, just shy of his gills. There’s a steady pulse beating under his finger tips and another wave of relief crashes through him. It doesn’t do anything to lessen the glare he turns on Gordon. “You could have fucking _killed_ him with a double dose you dumbass. Did you even think of that?”

“No, I was more interested in keeping the crazed creature from killing the rest of us.” Gordon shoots back, helping Alistair to his feet.

One of Alistair’s arms is soaked through with blood and Dean feels vindictively pleased to see him in the slightest bit of pain. Those dark feelings should bother him, but they really, really don’t. These ass clowns deserve every little bump and bruise they get.

“What did he do to Lilith?” Alistair says it through clenched teeth and Dean has to fight from grinning.

Dean spares one glance to the crumpled figure laying on the other side of the ruined, overturned ottoman. Lilith is completely out for the count. He shrugs and that’s about all the shits he can give for her.

He fumbles to get his phone, trying to do it without jostling his arm. “He attacked her through the kin-connection because you broke my arm, dumb shit.” Dean’s slower at texting one handed, but he starts tapping out a message to  Sam. “You better call someone to come help her, and you should get that stitched up soon. We wouldn’t want you to get any infections, would we?”

Alistair shakes Gordon off and he crosses over to where Dean is sitting next to Cas. Dean sends his message to Sam as Alistair kneels, dripping blood everywhere.

“Don’t touch him.” Dean practically hisses at him, looking up sharply.

“Lilith’ll have our heads if something happened to him. I’ve got to check to make sure he’s okay.” Alistair reaches out for Cas like Dean did and Dean doesn’t even think twice about lashing out. It’s a back-handed, almost carelessly harsh movement, but it catches Alistair straight in the nose and he falls back on his ass, cursing and gushing blood like a geyser.

“I told you – _don’t touch him_.”

Pain flares up and down his left side again as Gordon hauls him too his feet from behind. Dean nearly falls on his face when he’s shoved out of the way. The pain is nearly blinding and he stumbles hard, barely able to keep his feet under him. When he looks back, Gordon is reaching for Cas and that is the absolute _last_ fucking thing he’s going to allow anyone to do.

“Don’t touch him!” The move he pulls could basically be called a tackle. Judging by the jarring pain that makes him taste copper and his vision swim, he’d say it was most definitely a tackle. Funny. All he’d been aiming for was a gentle body-shove.

They hit the floor and Dean has no idea – not a frikken clue – how he doesn’t black out during the resulting tussle. It takes a well placed (mostly accidental) knee to the stomach and nearly breaking his fist on Gordon’s cheek to untangle himself and get to his feet again. The pain in his left arm is spreading across his shoulders and into his chest and _Christ_.

It’s purely by accident that he gets his hands – _hand –_ on the dart gun. Literally, all he did was roll off Gordon and, boom, gun under his hand. He slides back on his ass to sit by Cas and levels the gun at Gordon.

“Both of you back the fuck off. Take your shit boss and get out. Sam’s on his way and he’s going to help me get Cas back to our room.” He flicks the gun to Alistair when he starts getting up, pressing his sleeve to his nose. “There are three more darts in this gun and I don’t miss. If you want to take your chances, be my guest.”

It’s Gordon who gets Alistair steady on his feet and together they carry Lilith out of the room. Both of them are muttering oaths and curses, but it’s nothing nearly as colourful as what Dean can come up with – the amateurs. And after hearing Bobby slam his hand in a car door, absolutely nothing surprises him in the bad language department. Dean waits a few moments after the door clicks before he lowers the gun and turns to Cas.

He puts the gun in his lap for quick and easy access just in case Alistair or Gordon decides to make another quick entrance. It takes a little maneuver and teeth clenching, but Dean pulls off his plaid flannel shirt uses it to tie his arm to his side. It’s a shitty makeshift solution, but it’s all he can really do for now until Sam gets here.

He spends those few minutes plucking the darts from Cas and checking to make sure he isn’t hurt anywhere else. Lucky bastard barely has a scratch on him. There are welts where the darts hit, but that about sums up his damages and Dean once again thanks that God he doesn’t really believe in.

By the time Sam comes in – Dean narrowly avoids pulling the trigger and shooting his little bro up with enough tranquilizer to take down a moose – he has Cas’s head resting on his leg and he’s running his fingers through his hair. For a split second he thinks Sam might have seen him being all sentimental with Cas, but he doesn’t say or do anything about it.

After that, Dean’s memories of getting Cas back to the tank and Sam taking him to the infirmary to see Pam about his arm are kinda fuzzy. Everything is mostly a giant blur of pain and concern for Cas. And since they don’t have the swipe card necessary to take the elevator, they have to push him on the stupid flatbed all the way down to the science level.

They don’t even make it out of Lilith’s office before Sam forces Dean sit on the trolley to keep him from jostling his arm. If it just so happens that he has to hold Cas and keep his tail tucked around his legs so nothing gets caught under the wheels – well, that’s a happy coincidence. Dean tries to find some kind of enjoyment out of having Cas curled against his chest and puffing soft breaths against his neck, but it’s a little – read: a lot – impossible when every little bump or turn has his entire left side shrieking in pain.

He’s not sure how they got the trolley into the mess hall, down the stairs, or even how they got Cas into the tank. He definitely remembers being flanked by guards the whole time they were on deck. Although by then he might have been seeing doubles, so he’s not entirely sure about the accuracy of the number of guards. He vaguely remembers the expression on Pam’s face when Sam half carried him into the infirmary. It was somewhere between a ‘what the hell happened to you’ and a ‘not again’.

And then Pam gave him those fucking _awesome_ pain killers and Dean _really_ doesn’t remember anything after that. 


	13. Dreaming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 11.**

It starts out like every other good dream.

He’s on a nondescript beach – though he thinks it might be the one his parents took him to a few months before Sammy was born – surrounded by scantily clad babes. All of which want to play some downright _aggressive_ volleyball. And being the gentleman that he is, Dean is more than willing to comply.

It’s during a pretty intense bump and spike that Dean sees him. The guy sticks out like a sore thumb on the beach. He’s standing in the water, just out far enough that the waves are licking at the hems of the ridiculous tan trench coat he’s wearing. That, in and of itself, is weird as hell because who the fuck wears tan trench coats to the beach?

There’s something familiar about him that keeps drawing Dean’s attention. Maybe it’s the way he holds his shoulders, or the way the wind tugs at his hair and clothes though he never moves. He just stands there and stares out at the shifting waves and waters of the ocean.

When he finally turns, Dean nearly takes the volleyball to his head. The guy doesn’t turn all the way, not enough for Dean to see his face. But he starts sloshing away up the beach, never leaving the shallows. The wind pulls open that damn awful coat and Dean catches a glimpse of a Sunday’s best suit. The idiot is walking in the water without rolling his pant legs up and everything about him keeps niggling at the back of Dean’s mind.

This is _his_ dream, goddammit. Who the hell is this guy and why the heck is he so damn distracting? Dean can’t focus for the life of him on the girls and guys bouncing and diving around him and he’s pretty certain that the volleyball net is getting blurry, like it’s fading away. It gets more and more indistinct the further the guy gets up the beach.

Dean panics.

He doesn’t want the guy to go. The guy should take off his coat, and his suit, and come join the party. Or better yet, since he’s so attached to staring out at the sea, he and Dean can go out for a swim. He doesn’t really care what they do, as long as trench coat guy doesn’t leave.

So he extracts himself from the game. The girls don’t stop him. The guys don’t stop him. In fact, the whole game probably ceases to exist the moment he steps off the playing field. It’s hard to run in the sand, but Dean keeps at it until he finally catches up with the trench coat guy.

He’s stopped walking and he’s staring out at the ocean again. Dean makes plenty of noise as he splashes out next to him, but the guy doesn't even turn to see who’s approaching. They stand side by side and watch the froth tipped waves together. Dean really,  _really_  wants to turn his head and look at him. But he doesn’t. They just keep standing there, staring the rolling sea.

“Hello, Dean.”

He knows that voice too. It’s familiar, but he can’t place it and that bothers him. Dean really wants to look at the guy, but his body isn’t listening and it’s driving him crazy. He’s been able to control the dream so far – hell, he even _knows_ it’s a dream. So that’s got to account for something, right?

Fine. Fuck you dream world. If he can’t control his movements, he should at least be able to control his mouth. Dean licks his lips and asks the guy standing just out of his peripheral vision who he really is.

“What are you looking for?”

Son of a bitch! That is _not_ what he wanted to ask. It doesn’t even make sense. The guy is looking _at_ the sea. There isn’t anything to show that he’s looking _for_ something. He hears his own frustrated growl and the rustle of the trench coat as the wind whips up around them.

“A way home.”

Let’s try again. Who are you?

“Where is home?”

 _Fuck_.

“Far away from here.”

He feels fingers on the back of his hand and Dean isn’t sure if it’s his own decision or the dream’s that has him turning his hand until those fingers slot between his own. This should be making him freak out. He should be shaking the hand off and pulling away and not thinking about how those fingers somehow manage to feel both right and _wrong_.

There’s something missing about those fingers and he doesn’t know _what_.

“I want to go home.”

Dean squeezes the hand holding his (or is he the one doing the holding?). This conversation is starting to sound familiar too. But just like the voice, he can’t place it and it’s like an itch in his brain.

“I’ll take you there.”

“You can’t come with me, Dean.”

Well that’s just bullshit. This is Dean’s dream and he can go wherever the fuck he wants, thank you very much. Just as soon as he manages to wrest back control of his body. “Why not?”

“You would die.”

“No, I won’t.”

“You will, Dean. You can’t go where I can.”

“I can go wherever I want.” Finally it seems like he’s getting back control. He squeezes the fingers held between his own again. “I don’t want you to go.” And there it goes again. What the hell?

He’s not sure if he likes or hates this dream.

The horizon is starting to turn red, as if the sun is rising. Isn’t there some sailor saying? Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight? But the sun isn’t rising, and it sure as hell isn’t setting. It’s right there, high in the sky and fixed in what is probably an eternal noon position.

“Stay.”

Saying that one word actually hurts him. His heart clenches and his breath catches. He’s not entirely sure if the rapid pulse thrumming in his ears and blocking out the sounds of the beach is because of what he said, or because of the red that’s bleeding through the sky and tainting the ocean to look like blood. It’s curling closer, rolling like a thunderhead and it’s making Dean nervous.

He says it again. “Stay.”

Dean senses more than he actually sees the trench coat guy turn. The hand holding his tightens but everything keeps getting red, red, red.

“Dean.”

He wants to turn. Why won’t he turn? Jesus Christ, please just let him turn!

“I can’t stay.”

He knows that. Dean knows that almost better than he knows himself. It’s the one constant that keeps circling around and around and around in his head and he hates it. He actually _hates_ it. To the point that he thinks he’s going to be sick because his stomach keeps doing flip flops like the waves that are breaking around his legs.

“Stay.”

“I have to go home.”

“This can be your home. It’s not so bad, is it?” Christ, he doesn’t need to be a shrink to hear the desperate question that _really_ is.

Dean wants him to stay. He doesn’t want him to go, to leave him alone like everyone he’s ever cared for has done at one point or another. Mom, Dad, Sammy, even Bobby, and Cassie – fuck, _Cassie_. Cassie. Cass – No. That’s wrong. That doesn’t sound right.

“Cas.”

He turns.

How does Cas look wrong and right at the same time? The trench coat and the backwards tie suit him, but he looks so weird, so different, so _not Cas_ without all his fins and scales. The wind has made his hair wild, swept into little spikes and valleys that never hold still as it keeps getting tugged every which way.

But his eyes are still the same. And so is that pinched little confused frown of his as he tilts his head to the side.

God, Dean’s going to miss that. He’s going to miss Cas’s voice in his head and that scent of the sea that clings to his skin. The feel of those slip-smooth scales under his fingers when Cas curls tight around him because he needs the comfort of another person and he could have picked Sam, or Jess but he picked _Dean_.

Nobody needs him anymore. And once Cas is free, he won’t need Dean either.

“Stay.”

“Why?”

Don’t make him say it.

Cas just needs to stay. He has to. He can’t leave. He _should_ leave because that’s the right thing to do. But Dean wants to be selfish. For once in his life, just this once, please let him be selfish. Let him have just one thing he wants and let that be Cas.

“Dean?”

The sky is melting around them and the sea is foaming red around their feet. It’s rising and pushing at their knees and swirling about their hips. It’s not bothering him, not affecting him at all. But he can see the way the tide is pulling at Cas’s coat and suit, like it’s trying to drag him out to sea. Like it’s trying to take him away, to take him home.

Dean pulls his hand from Cas’s and steps into the personal space bubble that’s been nonexistent since the get go with them. He fists his fingers in Cas’s ridiculous post-sex bed-head hair and tugs him forward like he’s wanted to do since he took Cas’s first kiss.

This isn’t the real Cas. He’s all kinds of wrong and he’s not in Dean’s head like he should be. But he comes willingly and his lips part under the press of Dean’s tongue. He can feel Cas’s fingertips pressing into his back, but there’s no prick of claws and he’s maybe a little disappointed that the teeth he’s tracking with the tip of his tongue are flat and smooth like his own.

Cas kisses back like he knows how, like he’s been doing it his whole life and that’s wrong too. The real Cas doesn’t know how to kiss. He’s all kinds of wide-eyed innocence that Dean just wants to tear apart. He wants to show Cas everything he’s been missing and he doesn’t have a clue how that would work because hell if he knows anything about Cas’s junk. But fuck does he want to try.

There’s thunder in the air and Dean ignores it. Let the storms come. He’s got this dream-Cas leaning into him, nipping at his bottom lip exactly how Dean likes it. His tongue curling, tasting, flicking over the roof of his mouth and sending shivers down Dean’s spine.

The wind is howling now, and Dean would almost swear it sounds like Sam’s voice. He doesn’t want to open his eyes again and see what the melting sky has done to the world. The sky has fallen and he can feel it pressing against him, skirting the edges of him in a familiar way. The sea, the wind and the sky keep trying to push between him and Cas and Dean doesn’t want to let go.

Light presses at his eyelids and the feel of Cas’s lips under his disappears. Sam’s voice is clear and telling him to wake the hell up because Bobby brought food and something about having to take his damn pain meds. Dean knows he’s woken up and he should get up. Cas might be awake by now.

God, how mad is he going to be? How many times has he told Cas that he’d protect him, that he’d keep him safe from Alistair and Lilith? How many times has he failed at doing just that? He went and got his arm broken and Cas got shot up again and how fucking useless can he really be?

Guilt starts bubbling in his empty stomach and he’d focus on that if it wasn’t for that headache-y pressure pushing at his temples and around his head. He knows exactly what that is and it’s only going to be a moment before it clears up and Cas will be in his head again. Cas will be brain deep in Dean’s self-hatred and insecurity and every dark thought and twisted desire he should be protected from.

Dean sits up so fast the world spins a bit when he opens his eyes. His arm is hurting like a son of a bitch, but it’s a pain he’s used to. He uses it to ground himself, to get his focus back. He can feel Cas and the first little pulses of his emotions at the edge of his mind and Dean draws back from them. He imagines walls, a thousand feet thick steel walls that even the Hulk wouldn’t be able to pound his way through, and surrounds himself with them.

He pushes the walls out, forcing away Cas and the touch of his mind. It leaves him alone in his head again. Just like he’s been every single day of his life up until… God, what? Eight, nine days? Nine days and he already thinks it’s too quiet in his own fucking head when Cas isn’t there. It’s too dark. Having Cas in there lights it up. His voice chases the shadows away and Dean is getting way too used to it.

He’s got to free Cas, get him back into the sea where he’ll swim right out of his life. He’s going to have to let him go, before he gets in too deep. Before letting Cas go will rip him apart.

He might as well start now.


	14. Hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place between Chapter 11 and Chapter 12.**

In the five years that Dean’s known her, Jess has never managed to perfect the quiet whisper. So it’s no surprise that he hears her loud and clear when she leans up to talk into Sam’s ear. “Doesn’t it sound like a love song?”

It’s funny how his stomach can feel like it’s sinking and his heart, or his lungs or whatever it is in his chest that’s feeling like that, can manage to feel like it’s soaring. As if that’s supposed to be _good_ news. But it’s not. Someone help him he wishes that it was, but it’s _not_. Even Cas knows it.

The ribbons between them start trembling with _nononono_ hard enough that Dean damn near winces. Cas turns to look at Jess, eyes wide and he looks _scared_. Jess’s little comment has stunned everyone quiet and Dean wants to kick himself. No, he wants to get drunk and forget this ever happened. He knows what love songs sound like. How the hell didn’t he realize that’s what Cas’s song was? Even if a fin-kin’s song doesn’t follow the same musical rules as human songs do, Dean should have been able to recognize it at least in how Cas _looked_ at him while he was singing.

Dean swallows and asks the question he really doesn’t want to ask. _(Is… Cas, is she right? Was it – Is it a – Is it a love song?)_

God, he hopes Jess is wrong.

Cas looks back at him and Dean doesn’t even need the kin-connection to know that Cas never meant for him to know what the song really is. He looks terrified, he looks like this is the last question he wants to answer. It’s all the answer that Dean needs and that fluttering feeling in his chest starts to match the sinking feeling in his stomach. It makes him want to be sick. Cas sang him a love song. A _love_ song. Cas would only do that if he was – _shit_.

He snaps up every kind of wall that he can imagine around the ribbon that the emotions run along. Dean makes them as thick and solid as he can so he won’t feel any of what Cas is going to feel, so Cas can’t feel anything that _he_ feels. Dean doesn’t think he could stand either. Especially not when he wants to be happy about it. He _wants_ Cas to feel like that for him. He shouldn’t, but he does. Because if Cas wants Dean as much as he wants him, that’s – it’s supposed to be _good_ to feel like this, isn’t it?

But it’s not good. Not when Cas is – he’s not even _human_. He’s not going to be able to _stay_. Aren’t they working to get him his freedom? Dean’s not going to be able to keep him. So this whole thing is just – it would be stupid, so stupid, to chase after whatever this could be. It doesn’t help that Dean _wants_ to be stupid. He wants to give Cas an answer that would make him stop looking like that.

Baby help him, Dean is going to have to break Cas’s heart.

 _(Don’t, Cas, don’t sing something like that. Not for me.)_ He didn’t think it would hurt that much to say. But it’s like his ribs are a vice and they’re squeezing tight around his insides.

Dean shoves his hand through his hair and looks away. He can’t take that _look_ on Cas’s face. The wide eyes, the open mouth, the _hurt_. His face is getting hot, his eyes hurt, needle-pricks are running over his arms and Dean hates it, he _hates_ it. If he could climb into that tank right now, he would. It’s what he wants to do. He wants to pull Cas in tight and hold him and not let him go – but Dean needs to be the bigger person because this is wrong.

He can’t start anything with Cas only to lose him. _(You can’t – you shouldn’t do that.)_ Dean needs to make Cas see that wanting anything with him is _bad_. No matter what it takes. Even if it kills him to say it. _(It’s just fucking Stockholm Syndrome. And God, Cas, you’re not – I’m a goddamn_ human _.)_ You shouldn’t want me. _(Don’t. Just don’t. It’s wrong.)_

But it doesn’t _feel_ wrong. Nothing about this feels wrong. This _feeling_ pinching behind his sternum that makes him feel warm when he lets himself think about it. Nothing about it feels bad, so why should sharing it with Cas be wrong? It’s hard not to react when Cas cuts out of the kin-connection. It’s harder to not look up and check on him.

“What the hell did you just say to him?” Sam sounds angry.

Even though Dean is hating himself on extreme levels right now, he still has it in him to be pissed at Sam for that. What right does Sam have to be mad with him when he just had to do that last thing he ever wanted to do? He had to _hurt Cas_.

Dean doesn’t even remember the fight with Sam by the time he storms out. All he knows is he feels like shit. He can barely breathe, barely see straight. Sam didn’t help by picking at the sores Dean has for hurting Cas like that, but Sam doesn’t _know_. It’s not like Sam can see inside Dean. It’s not like he knows how Dean feels about – No. Dean needs to _stop_. He can’t think about that anymore. He can’t think about _Cas_ anymore.

This is – this whole situation is fucked up. Dean let himself get too close. He should have stayed away, should have kept himself at arm’s length like he’d planned. But Cas had needed him. He _needed_ him like nobody’s needed him in a long time and now – Jesus, what if it is Stockholm syndrome? But that doesn’t explain how Dean still feels like – Fuck, just _stop_.

He needs to get Cas out of his head – out of _here –_ before things get worse, before they get to a point where Dean really won’t be able to let go. If he lets Cas get any closer – physically or _more –_ things are just going to be harder. He’s going to get Cas out – one day, some way – and they’re not going to be able to stay together. Cas lives at the bottom of the goddamn ocean and Dean is – he’s broken. He can’t be what Cas needs if they ever – no, it’s not going to work.

Dean needs to get Cas out here _now_.

And he’s going to need Pam and Bobby’s help to do it.


	15. Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 12.**

Fuck. He hadn’t really stopped to think about the smoke. Cas starts coughing with the first step Dean takes into the stairwell and his worry increases a hundredfold. It’s a giant fucking distraction and Dean’s foot catches on the first stair.

“Shit!” He stumbles. Please, Christ, don’t let him fall on his face and drop Cas on these goddamn stairs. “Just hold your breath or something, Cas.” Dean hopes Jess or Sam or whoever has the kin-connection with Cas right now translates it for him – and no, he’s not going to be jealous because if he has that link again, if he lets Cas into his head again, he won’t be able to go through with this no matter how badly he needs to get Cas outta here.

Dean twists, looking over his shoulder. “Anyone got something to cover his face with?”

Pam shucks her coat off and Dean smiles at her when she throws it over Cas’s head. She leans down and tucks it tight to his chest to keep the smoke out. He mouths a ‘thank you’ and starts climbing the stairs after her again. Cas starts shaking his head and shit, he’s trying to dislodge the goddamn coat. Doesn’t he realize it’s saving his lungs from all this damn smoke?

It’s making Dean’s eyes sting just trying to see through it. They’re dumbasses for not thinking about this before, but it can’t be helped really. They were more focused on building a damn bomb and figuring out exactly where to put it to get the most attention.

“Don’t, Cas. Leave it, please.” Short words. That’s the key. If no one is translating for him then he hopes Cas will recognize those little words.

Either he understands or someone must explain it because Cas goes still. Thank whatever god is looking down on Cas’s scaled ass. The higher they climb, the thinner the smoke gets. It’s gotta be leaking out through the ventilation shafts at the top of the stairwell or through whatever doors have gotta be open. Either way, it’s getting easier to see with every step.

Cas has gotta be freaking out under that coat. He can’t see a fucking thing through it and Dean knows how Cas is. Hell, he probably knows Cas better than he knows himself – or Sammy for that matter. Cas doesn’t like not being able to see what’s going on. He’s curious and on his guard. He’s a fucking _warrior_. That will never not be badass.

Dean tilts his head just a bit, just enough to press his mouth to what feels like Cas’s temple and still be able to keep an eye on the stairs and counting in the back of his head how many there are between the platforms. “Almost there, Cas. One more flight of stairs, through the mess hall, and then you’ll be home free.”

Pam is already on the deck level and she calls down to them. “Room is cleared out, but I see patrols on deck.”

“Anyone near the door?” Sam shouts back, bringing up the rear behind Dean and Jess.

“Not really, but they’ll see us through the windows and angelfish here is pretty damn noticeable.”

Dean bites the inside of his cheek to keep from swearing again. Fuck, can’t they ever catch a break?

He’s almost at the top when Jess speaks up. “Can we hit the lights?”

His foot catches on the last stair and he damn near chomps a hole through his cheek. If they turn off the lights, someone is going to notice that and they can’t forget that Cas glows in the dark like a deep sea light bulb. He hefts Cas up a little higher, shifting him in his arms slightly.

“Not if we don’t want to wave a ‘look at us, we’re up to something’ flag in their faces.” Jesus, Cas is getting heavy. Dean’s in good shape, yeah, but even he can’t carry a full grown fin-kin up a few flights of stairs without getting winded. “Sam, you go out first. Get them with the tranqs. Soon as you’ve got the guys closest to the door, we’ll make a break for it. All we gotta do is get Cas over the rails and we’re golden.”

His heart stutters to a stop when Cas’s arms tighten around his shoulders and Jesus he’s rubbing his nose into Dean’s cheek. His voice is muffled through the coat, but Dean can hear him clear as day.

“Dean. Tag.”

Shit, okay, that’s a good thing to bring up. “I know, I know. We’ve got it covered, don’t worry.” He reaches the main landing and leans against the railing to catch his breath. His arms are burning like all get out but he’ll be damned if he’s going to put Cas down when this is the last time he’s going to get to hold him.

Sam pushes past Jess and Pam, heading out into the cafeteria. Pam immediately pulls the door almost closed, but she’s not looking after him. She’s turned around and giving Dean the goddamn stink-eye. He really doesn’t deserve that. She holds up a needle and Dean winces because yeah, okay, now would totally be the perfect time for them to get rid of the tracking tag.

He shakes his head and the stink-eye turns into an all out glare that makes him wince again. Pam wipes the expression from her face the moment Jess pulls the coat off Cas to give back to her. Cas blinks against the lights and looks around, taking in his surroundings like the good soldier that he is. Pam puts the coat back on and stares out the door, hopefully keeping her eyes on Sam.

“What’s Sam doing?” Jess leans in over Pam’s back, trying to see through the door too. “If he doesn’t hurry, someone is going to see us on the cameras. Alistair isn’t going to be entertained for long by the engine issue once he tells Bobby to go look at it.”

“If he can find him. Or get out of the room.” Dean is getting his breath back and he grins, ridiculously proud of their plan. He only winces a little when he shifts Cas in his arms again, lifting him higher to give some of his other muscle groups a break. “We’ve been having trouble getting that door to stay open, y’know? Sticks something awful when it swings shut all on its own. Good thing that room has decent ventilation.”

Cas is looking at him, he can see it out the corner of his eye. He hopes to hell that Cas can’t feel how hard his heart is pounding at just that simple look. And even if he can feel it, he’ll be more likely to think that it’s because of the climb and having to carry him. Dean plays it off the cuff, looking right back at Cas and waggling his eyebrows with a grin.

That sinking feeling in his stomach is totally because of their situation and not because Cas looked away. It’s not because Cas won’t even meet his eyes. _Fuck_. This is a _good_ thing, getting Cas out of here. It’s a damn good thing. Any longer and Dean’ll be lost for fucking good.

Dean’s arms are burning. They hurt in more places than he can count and he should put Cas down or get one of the girls to help hold him up just a little. But he’d rather cut his arms off than give up these last few moments with Cas. He doesn’t want his last chance to hold Cas in the calm before the storm to be broken by Pam shoving a foot long needle into Cas’s back. It’s fucking _sentiment_ and Dean hates it but he can’t help it. He’s selfish and he wants this minutes to himself right now.

Cas grunts unhappily when Dean bounces him, trying to find a good way to hold him to give his arms a frikken rest. It gets him a small frown, but at least Cas is looking at him aga – nope, thought too soon. He looks away again and Dean grits his teeth.

“Cas –” He whispers and he knows Cas hears him, he can see the way his head-fan flick toward him even though he doesn’t turn to look at him again. Dean shifts his stance against the rail, but before he can speak again, Pam talks.

“Oh Christ, he’s _talking_ to one of them. Maybe one of us should go over there?”

Son of a bitch. Of course the bleeding-heart Samsquatch would _talk_ to the guards he’s supposed to be shooting full of tranquilizers. Jesus, his feet are starting to hurt just standing here. He shifts again. “You go, Pam. The guards know about our situation and they’re going to get suspicious if he’s walking about alone. Sam’ll shoot as soon as the guard’s attention is on you.” At least he damn well _better._

Pam nods and ducks through the door, Jess taking her place as look out. Dean nearly drops Cas when he feels his fingers twitch over his shoulders. He’s still not looking at him and that’s just… It’s killing him. They don’t have the kin-connection and he has no idea how Cas is feeling about this. Those ruffled fans along his tail keep rippling every so often, but he’s not doing much else and it’s driving Dean fucking _crazy_ to not have Cas in his head.

“ _Cas_.” He murmurs again and Jesus-fuck could he sound any more emotional? If he breaks down in tears, he’ll throw himself right off the boat along with Cas because there is no way in hell he’s going to be able to live that down.

Cas tenses. Dean can see it in every line of his body and the muscles under his hands. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and if Dean’s stomach was somewhere around his ankles before, now it’s doing laps under the boat. His eyes – those goddamn baby blues that don’t leave Dean alone no matter where he is – are pleading and Dean’s chest clenches.

“No, Dean.” Cas says it soft and quiet.

Dean’s blood runs cold. Does Cas know? How the fuck could he _know_? He’s kept everything hidden behind so many walls he’s lost track of how many there are and _he_ barely knows what he’s feeling. Jesus, please tell him Cas doesn’t know. Please tell him Cas isn’t stopping him because he thinks he’s going to say… say _that_. Because he’s not. He just – he has no fucking clue what he’s going to say.

“Now!” Jess shouts, throwing open the door.

He staggers after her and Cas clings tighter. They rush through the cafeteria and into the rain. Cas gasps and Dean only wonders for a moment if Cas has ever felt the wind or the rain before. Sam already took out two guys and they’re out for the count on the deck. Pamela is close beside him and Dean heads straight for her when she calls him over. They need to get the tag out right here before he gets Cas overboard and they really should have done this inside. Dean is squinting into the rain and Pam can’t be much better off than he is, so that’s just going to make it a million times harder to get the chip out. He’s kicking himself for it and if Cas is hurt by this at all, he’s going to feel really fucking guilty for this later.

Dean lets go of Cas’s tail and holds him by the waist, his good hand going under the bend in his tail that would – if he was human – be considered his ‘ass’. He hefts him up so Cas has got his elbows on Dean’s shoulders and he’s looking down at him with wide, surprised eyes. He holds Cas tight and doesn’t look away, even has he turns his head to shout over his shoulder to anyone who might be listening.

“Keep an eye on the upper decks!”

Cas flinches when Pam touches him, but he’s frowning down at Dean like he’s confused. Someone must have stopped translating for him. At least that’s what it looks like to Dean.

“We don’t have enough ammo to shoot blindly into the rain, Dean!” Sam shouts back.

“Take the guards’ guns!” Jess answers for him and Dean would kiss her if he wasn’t holding Cas up and seriously contemplating kissing him instead. Coz’ this is going to be the last chance he gets and fuck if he doesn’t want to take it.

“This might hurt a bit.” Pam mumbles and Dean can barely hear her over the rain or what could, quite possibly, be his blood pounding in his ears. He’s trapped under Cas’s eyes and he wouldn’t have it any other way. “We should have done this inside.”

“No time.”

“We had plenty of time, you just didn’t want –”

“ _Focus_ , Pam.”

As if it isn’t obvious enough that he didn’t want to waste the calmest moments he had alone with him. He was selfish and stupid and he wanted to talk to Cas inside, without the kin-connection, but without anyone having to translate for them and of course that’s fucking impossible. Jesus, what has Cas _done_ to him?

Cas’s eyes squeeze shut and he hisses, a little noise that pulls at Dean’s insides. Pam must have stuck the needle in and Dean can feel Cas’s hands trembling, fisted in the back of his shirt. Small sounds, broken off whimpers, fill the space between them and Dean fucking _hates_ those noise. They’re sounds of pain and he can’t stand even thinking of Cas hurting.

God, he wants to kiss him. Get one last salt-sea taste of his tongue and teeth. But Cas got so mad just coz’ of that one little kiss before when he didn’t ask permission. Just because they’ve cuddled a couple times – just because Cas all but admitted to feeling _something_ for him - Dean out and out refuses to even think about that.

Dean shifts him to one arm and tries to give Cas some kind of comfort, rubbing his other hand up his neck and into his hair. The vacuum sleeve keeps him from feeling the rough thickness of Cas’s hair and that’s just another thing between him and Dean that makes his blood boil. He wants to touch Cas like normal, like the few times he’s gotten to and actually _feel_ him. Cas’s tail keeps dragging over the tops of his feet, even as Dean presses at the back of his head, guiding him to tilt his head down until their foreheads are touching.

It would be so easy to kiss him right now.

“Almost got it – don’t move now.” Pam says and then Cas actually _gasps_ , a sound that stabs right through Dean.

Jesus fucking Christ, getting that tag out is _hurting_ him and Dean can’t take it. He’s gotta distract Cas somehow and he just – he doesn’t know what to do. No, that’s a lie. He knows exactly what he _could_ do and if Cas hates him after it, then it doesn’t matter because as soon as that damn chip is out of his back he’s going over the rails and Dean will never see him again.

And if that doesn’t make his insides wither and die, then he doesn’t know what will.

He tilts his chin up, enough to catch Cas’s mouth with his own. If he wasn’t absolutely certain that he was the one to make the first move, he’d almost say that Cas tipped down to kiss _him_. Either way, it’s happening and it’s – it’s _not_ _perfect_. He can’t say that, he won’t say that. Not right now, not when this is the last he’s going to get to touch him, to kiss him. This isn’t something he’s allowed. He’s stealing it and he hates himself for it, but hell if he’s going to stop.

How can he? It’s impossible to even think of stopping when Cas’s tail curls around his hips and his fingertips are pressing into the back of his neck, thumbs under his ears. Cas breaks away, pulling a ragged breath against Dean’s mouth and Dean tries to do the same but then Cas is kissing him again. More and more, one right after the other. There are noises between each kiss, soft little sounds that take more of Dean’s brainpower than he currently has right now to realize that they’re fucking _words_.

Cas is talking to him. He’s speaking in the fin-kin language and Dean recognizes a few words but he has no goddamn idea what Cas is saying. The words are whispered between each breath, every press of lips, and Dean doesn’t want this to end. But at the same time it _needs_ to. If Cas doesn’t stop, if he doesn’t keep saying heated words against his lips, he – Dean doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to let him go.

“ _JESS!_ ” Sam fucking _screams_ her name and Dean startles so badly he nearly drops Cas.

He squeezes Cas to his chest and turns to see what the hell is going on. Pam says something about not moving, but Dean ignores it completely. There’s more for him to worry about than that. For one, Jess is laying at the bottom of the stairs with a goddamn dart in her stomach. Sam nearly knocks Dean – and subsequently, Cas too – off his feet as he brushes by.

The wind kicks up and Pam grabs Sam’s arm, holding him back. “Azazel!” She shouts, loud enough for all of them to hear and she points at the stairs where lo and behold the douchewad himself steps into view. And the cherry on the cake is the fucking dart gun twirling around his finger. Sam levels his own gun at him, but Azazel only looks up and grins.

“Howdy boys! Taking the pet for a morning walk are you?” He stops spinning the gun and Dean’s heart nearly gives out in his chest when he points it straight at him and Cas. “You can go ahead and put the Beast down now, Beauty. I’m afraid you won’t be getting away _that_ easy.”

“Put down your gun, Azazel. And I swear to God, if Jess is hurt you’ll be chum before the week is out.” Sam sounds angrier than Dean has ever heard him.

Pam tugs at Sam’s arm again. “Might want to rethink that decision. We’re a bit out matched here, don’t y’think?”

Dean doesn’t want to look. He knows they’re surrounded. They were before they even started this damn fool attempt. Cas would be free by now if Dean hadn’t – if he’d just let Pam take the goddamn tag out while they were inside. His stomach keeps twisting into uncomfortable shapes and his whole chest feels tight, like he’s never going to be able to breathe again. Cas won’t hold still. He’s keeps twisting and turning to try and see everything around them, to get his bearings on the situation. Dean slides back a step, going with the roll of the boat.

Azazel takes a step closer, tsking and shaking his head. “Ah-ah-ah, Dean-o. Don’t go getting any stupid ideas now. You and yours are already in some deep shit and Lilith is going to eat your still beating hearts if you actually dump that thing overboard.”

Dean tenses, not taking his eyes from Azazel. He’s pretty damn sure that he can get Cas over the edge before anyone can get a dart in him. Whether or not Dean gets shot up in the process doesn’t matter. As long as Cas hits the water tranquilizer-free, then this – and everything that comes after – will all worth it.

“Pam?” He doesn’t look at her until he sees the glint of the needle. It’s just a quick glance, but Pam is grinning and that’s all folks.

He spins, shoving Cas over the railing. He’s not holding him up high enough and the rail catches Cas in the hip. He cries out – in pain, in surprise, Dean doesn’t fucking know. It’s the last sound of Cas’s he’ll ever get to hear and he wishes it was something else but he keeps shoving. He pushes him over even when he can feel three sharp pinches in his back and he’s hoping beyond hope that Cas didn’t get hit by anything.

Everything gets really blurry. Colours and shapes are blending together and it’s hard for him to see. Dean slumps against the rail, staring down the ship’s hull. He can barely see, but he knows Cas hit the water. Cas’s skin was pale against the dark waters and he can’t see the white anymore, even with everything distorted in his vision. The relief that Cas is under the waves makes his knees go weak – though he supposes that could be the tranquilizers.

Doesn’t matter.

Cas is safe. Cas is _free._

And even if he doesn’t wake up from this, he hopes Sam’ll be safe. Sam and Jess, Pam and Bobby. Fuck, please, let them all be okay. And, please, if anyone out there is listening – please let Cas get home safe. Just – _please_.


	16. Hello Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 13.**

Waking up is possibly the worst thing Dean has ever done in his extremely long history of bad ideas. His head hurts worse than any hangover he’s ever had, his arm is nothing but tingling pain from the elbow down, and his head is so fucking _empty_. There’s just him and pain and he doesn’t even know how he’s actually still alive. He remembers hands on his back, pushing him over the railing before the darts knocked him out completely and Azazel really doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would drag him back onto the boat after pushing him overboard.

Either way, he’s alive and he kinda wishes he wasn’t. Dean did a good thing. He got Cas back in the ocean. He got him his freedom and Cas is on his way home. Dean’s going to be fucked six ways from Sunday for doing that while Lilith is gone but it doesn’t fucking matter because Cas is free and even if he didn’t get to actually say ‘goodbye’, he –

He really needs to stop thinking about Cas. It’s not like he’s ever going to see him again. It’s not like he’s ever going to feel him in his head again, or hear him sing, or get to touch him again so he might as well just _stop thinking about him_.

Jesus, he’s been awake for all of five seconds and he already wants to be asleep again. At least his head wouldn’t hurt so fucking much then. And he won’t have to deal with Cas being _gone_. Why does it feel like Cassie all over again when the situations aren’t even remotely similar? It’s not like he was engaged to Cas or something. And they weren’t even – Cas was only maybe in –and it’s not like Dean – but he _does_ , sorta, not that it matters anymore because – _fuck_.

“Dean?”

There’s a hand on his shoulder and at least Dean has enough wits about him to know that it’s Sam trying to talk to him. He understands the other words Sam says, but they hurt his head and he just really doesn’t want to be awake right now. He doesn’t want to have to sit up and face a fuckload of trouble with Lilith and her cronies. He doesn’t want to have to go about his day pretending like his head isn’t full of his own monsters and that he had to let go of the one person who made them go away just by being _there_.

Another hand lands on his other shoulder and they’re pulling him up and he really wishes they weren’t doing that. He’s going to have to have _words_ with Sam about this. Maybe at a time when he’s a little more coherent. Right now he’s not really very close to that at all.

“C’mon, Dean. Sit up.”

Somehow he ends up sitting up but he makes no effort to open his eyes. His elbows dig into his thighs when he drops his head into his hands. His brain feels like someone stuck it into a blender and hit ‘liquefy’. There’s a pounding in his ears that’s probably supposed to be his blood, but it could also be teeny little men smacking at his ear drums with itty bitty hammers for all he knows.

“Dean?”

“Could y’shuddup f’five sec’nds please.” Oh look, words. As it turns out he _can_ make them. But talking just makes his head hurt more and now that he’s upright and sort of mobile, he’s getting more and more aware of that great big _empty_ sitting in his chest. Funny, he kinda thought there would only be one of those and it would be in his head. This one in his chest is all sorts of painful and he really doesn’t like it. Not even slightly.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Dean opens his eyes and at least three different hands wobble into view. That’s not fair, getting Jess to help confuse him. But the longer he looks, the less there are until there’s just one big blurry one. He could probably give a decent guess at the number of fingers, but he’d rather just get something in his stomach. Preferably booze. The sooner he can drink away the memories of Cas, the better.

“Not now, Sammy.” Dean shoves his hand away and even though it makes his stomach try to claw its way up his throat, he somehow manages to get to the edge of the bed and get his feet on the floor. “M’arm hurts and m’head hurts. Just want food and painkillers and booze.” Especially the booze. Mostly the booze. As long as it’s something that gets Cas out of his head when he’s not even there like Dean wants him to be.

Sam starts saying lots of words and only half of them seem to make any sense. Point is, Sam’s treating him like a little kid and Dean is anything but. Right now he’s a great big throbbing ball of _pain_ with what feels suspiciously like a broken heart – and that _scares_ him.

“M’not a baby, Sam. I c’n take care of m’self.” Or maybe not because moving with his eyes open just made him feel really fucking sick. He leans forward to put his head between his legs. “Y’can make the world stop spinnin’ though.” That sounds like a good little brother job. Sam should get right on that.

More words. Dammit, Sam, stop talking and just do. Make the world stop spinning, make his head stop hurting, and just – No. He can’t ask Sam to bring Cas back. That’s all kinds of selfish and he’s already been enough of that where Cas is concerned.

He hums, pretending like he actually listened to whatever Sam said. Someone holds crackers in front of his face and he’s pretty sure it’s Jess and he wants to kiss her for them, but Sam would probably object and Dean really doesn’t feel like kissing anyone right now. The person he wants to kiss is long gone by now. He’ll settle for letting her rub his back while he chews on the crackers, hoping his stomach settles down eventually.

Sam finally makes himself useful and gets Dean’s painkillers. Glory hallelujah baked into a pie. It’ll take a few minutes for it to kick in, but hopefully it’ll take away _all_ the pain. Not just the physical stuff that makes him ache from head to toe. It’s that pesky throbbing in his chest that he wants gone.

Jess takes the cup back when he’s done and Dean holds his head in his hands again, perfectly content to wait out the pain meds like this. Sam pats him on the shoulder again, telling him information he already knows. Except he whole heartedly disagrees with the last bit he says.

“But you’ll be back to normal soon enough.”

Whatever sound forces its way out his throat isn’t anything Dean would call a laugh. “Yeah, don’t think that’s gonna happen any time soon.” He doesn’t even know what normal is anymore.

It sure as hell isn’t this great gaping _wound_ in his head, like someone reached in and ripped out a part of him. It’s all Cas and the goddamn kin-connection’s fault. If he’d never let Cas into his head then he – fuck, but he can’t say that he regrets it. Dean wishes he did, but he doesn’t. Letting Cas into his head was the greatest thing and now – now he doesn’t know what to do with himself and all this _silence_.

“What are you talking about?”

Typical that Sam doesn’t get it. He’s got Jess. He gets to stay with her and there’s not a thousand hurdles to jump over for them to stay together. “S’nothing.”

Jess’s hand is on his back again. “Does it have something to do with Castiel?”

Oh God. It’s just his name and Dean’s heart does this funny little twist that forces another not-a-laugh sound out of him. Fuck, he kinda feels like he wants to cry. “I don’t wanna talk about it. Just tell me how fuckin’ screwed we are here. S’Pam okay?” Yeah, change of topic. She took a dart too didn’t she? They all did. Why aren’t they as fucked up as he is?

“She’s fine. Bobby’s with her now.” Sam’s voice sounds funny, sounds worried. “And none of us have heard from Alistair or even Lilith yet. There are guards outside, but they’re not stopping Bobby from getting us food or us going to the washroom or anything.”

“S’weird.” He rubs a hand through his hair, sitting back slowly. “How long have I been out?” The painkiller is starting to kick in. Not quick enough though, because the world does its little dance again.

“It’s Tuesday. Early afternoon.”

“Fuck.” Dean hunches forward and hates himself for asking the next question. He shouldn’t be asking about _him_. He should be _forgetting_ him. Yeah, keep not using his name. That’ll help loads. “Y’think he’s home yet?”

“Is… Dean, are you talking about Castiel?” Now Sam just sounds surprised.

He nods and regrets the little movement. “If he swam nonstop, y’think he’d get back home from here since yesterday mornin’?” That’d be nice. Somehow that thought, Cas home and happy with his family, makes him feel both better and worse. It makes him feel like shit for wishing that Cas was here and happy with him instead. Fuck, he’s thinking his name again when he just said he wouldn’t. What the hell is wrong with him?

Jess pats his shoulder. “Doubtful. We don’t have any idea how fast he can swim and we’re several days north from the islands. He would have had to swim more than twice our speed to get there in less than two days.”

Dean hopes it doesn’t take him more than a few days. The thought of Cas alone in the ocean – without his weapons no less – makes his stomach feel queasy. What if a shark attacks him? Or what if he got hurt when he hit the water? Shit, he can’t think about that or he’s actually going to be sick.

At least his head is feeling a little better. He sighs and sits back, rolling his shoulders. Everything hurts a little less – damn, those painkillers are _good_. “Well, I gotta piss and I wanna see how deep we’re in the shit.” He needs something to distract him to help get his mind off Cas.

But then the bed moves, like someone on it is shifting their weight. It’s not him and Jess didn’t move either. And she’s definitely not touching his hip on the other side of where she’s sitting. The touch brushes along his thigh and Dean doesn’t even stop to think about who it could be – because he doesn’t want to hope, doesn’t want to think that it might be –

He turns around so fast he damn near slips right off the bed. At least one butt cheek is definitely not on the mattress but he fixes that absentmindedly, sliding back onto the bed and maybe actually a little closer to the head of the bed where – _Jesus_. He can’t fucking believe what – _who_ – he’s seeing.

That pressure builds in his temples and gives way in a split second and Dean doesn’t even bother hiding anything he’s feeling because it’s _Cas_. Cas is _here_. He’s not gone. That should upset Dean – they worked so hard to get him out so why the hell is he here. But he’s just too fucking happy to care because Cas is _here_.

_(Hello, Dean.)_

He’s here and Dean has a second chance.


	17. Trial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 13.**

_(No, don’t carry me.)_

He knew it. He fucking _knew_ it. Cas has gotta be pissed at him for something. Either it’s because Dean is the biggest goddamn failure in the history of ever and it’s his fucking fault that Cas is still stuck on the boat, or it’s because he couldn’t control himself even slightly and he’d kissed Cas. It doesn’t matter that Cas had kissed back – several times, even. Or maybe, somehow, Cas knows that Dean is actually a little _happy_ that Cas is still here and it’s not enough that he fucking hates himself for feeling that.

None of that matters because Cas didn’t even want Dean to help him back onto the bed earlier and now he’s refusing to let him carry him down the stairs. And there is no way – in this world or the next – that Dean is going to let the guards – the same ones giving them the stink-eye – get their filthy hands on Cas. Thank the ever loving Enterprise that all it takes is a well imagined wall in his head to keep every goddamn dark, hateful, self-deprecating thought hidden from Cas.

Dean’s grip goes white-knuckled on the bar of the trolley and he glares at the guard’s back as he goes ahead of them to open the door. The trolley barely fits into the stairwell and Dean puts it as close as he can get it to the steps. There’s no way that he can get Cas to the showers unless he carries him down the stairs and by baby back home, that’s how he’s going to do it. Even if Cas hates him for it.

He crouches, reaching to pick him up. _(Why are you so against me carrying you, huh? It’ll be easier than working this damn thing down the stairs and the bathroom is practically right outside the stairwell.)_

The moment his hands stretch out, Cas practically fucking _recoils_. He presses back against the far bar on the trolley, hugging Dean’s clothes to his chest like a goddamn barrier between them, and flattens his tail to the trolley.

Dean bites the inside of his cheek, hiding everything in his head that isn’t his confusion – coz’ he _really_ doesn’t fucking understand this – and his frustration as he sits back on his heels. _(Christ. What did I do that set you off this time?)_

It would be so much easier if Cas didn’t have him blocked out, but he does and he isn’t even fucking _looking_ at him. He’s just shaking his head and staring at his caudal fin and Dean is three seconds away from trying to shake some sense into him. Ultimatums have worked with Cas before, so Dean hopes they do again now.

_(Well either we can sit here until you decide to tell me what’s wrong, or I’ll just take my stuff and you can wait here until I’m done my shower. Up to you, Cas.)_

Sure as shit, that works again. It succeeds in making Cas even more mad at him, if the disapproval flowing through the kin-connection is any kind of an answer. Cas is glaring at him hard and Dean steels himself, glaring back. He digs his heels in and retaliates with anger because this is _bullshit_. He hates himself enough already, he doesn’t need Cas to hate him too. And yes, he is going to completely ignore how much it _hurts_ to have Cas hate him.

Someone clears their throat near the door and Dean flinches back, breaking him out of the staring contest with Cas. Jesus. He stifles a sigh and rubs a hand through his hair, eyes on his knees. _(Cas, this is hard for me, okay? I’m not the best at keeping friends. And you’re the most… the most different person I’ve ever met. You throw me for a loop with practically everything you do. If we’re going to be friends, y’gotta tell me when something I do bothers you.)_

His fingers start twitching in his hair. _(Even with this link we got going where you’re in my head and I’m in yours, you keep holding back so much and I’m putting out everything I think you’d be okay to handle – and fuck have I been wrong on some occasions. But you go off the deep end from the weirdest things and it’s usually something physical or sexual – but I actually don’t know what’s wrong this time. You gotta at least tell me, so I can stop whatever it is that I’m doing and make things okay again.)_

He pauses for a moment and scratches at the back of his neck. This whole situation is beyond uncomfortable and he shifts slightly. _(This is verging on a chick-flick moment and I know you don’t understand what that is, but it’s something I really don’t like doing much. So could you just_ tell _me what I did wrong so I don’t do it again?)_

And if Cas says it’s because of the kiss, he’s going to punch himself in the face. It was supposed to be the last time he ever saw Cas. If he hadn’t been such a dumbass and fallen overboard – though it’s entirely possible that Azazel pushed him instead – Cas would be free and halfway home by now. But no, he’s stuck here in a hell of Lilith’s making with _Dean_ and that’s not even close to being any sort of a consolation.

 _(Yesterday…)_ Cas starts and stops, squeezing the bundle in his arms tighter.

 _(You’re going to have to be a bit more specific than that. A lot of stuff happened yesterday.)_ Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, _fuck_. This _is_ going to be about the kiss and Dean’s stomach must have decided it’s a great time to go on vacation because that’s the only explanation for why it’s trying to crawl up his throat.

Cas frown at him. _(Yesterday, when Pamela was removing the chip from my back. I… We…)_ He waves a hand between them and any confusion Dean might have goes out the window because yes, this is totally about the kiss and maybe if he threw himself down the stairs right now he could save himself the embarrassment of having this conversation.

 _(I’m… We shouldn’t have – I thought it would be the last time and –)_ Cas makes a little frustrated noise and he looks about as unhappy with this conversation as Dean is. _(I’m not sure that I won’t do it again if we end up in the same position as yesterday.)_

Sweet monkey Jesus.

This _is_ about the kiss. But Cas… Cas is worried _he’ll_ kiss Dean again? Holy shit. Relief has never felt so _good_. Hell, that might even be happiness making its merry way through his chest right now. It’s possibly the best feeling ever and Dean revels in it longer than he probably should.

He shoves Cas’s tail out of the way and sits on the trolley next to him. Dean plays it cool. He’s got to double check with Cas, make sure that what he thinks he’s talking about is actually what they’re talking about. God knows it’s easy enough to fuck up their communication when all you’re really talking in is emotions and images. _(Okay. If I’m getting this right, you don’t want me to pick you up because you think I’m going to kiss you again?)_

Confusion and surprise pulse hard through the kin-connection and Cas blinks up at him. _(Wasn’t I the one who kissed you?)_

Yup, that’s happiness alright. Because Cas being afraid of kissing him again means that Cas _wants_ to kiss him again. And that… that is just fan-fucking-tastic. _(I’m pretty sure that I’m the one who kissed you. But it doesn’t matter. The point is, Cas, if you want to kiss me, you can.)_ God, yes. How about right now? Right in front of these guards and the cameras. They should rub it in Lilith’s smug little face. _(I’m not going to complain and I’ll be a willing participant. Enthusiastic, even.)_ Cas’s attention drops to his lips and Dean’s heart fucking soars at that little glance. He tilts his head to catch his eyes again. _(I know this is too many kinds of ‘new’ for you to even think about counting – but I gotta say, you’re over thinking things.)_

He’s totally over thinking. Cas should just lean forward and _take_. Because Cas wants him and Dean wants him right back, and he knows Cas has some kind of feelings for him and that’s just – that’s more than he can think about right now. Especially since he may or may not be having _feelings_ too – if that weird fluttery feeling in his chest means anything – and he firmly stamps down on that before it can set down roots and make itself at home.

Cas fidgets and looks away. _(You’re misunderstanding me, Dean. My issue with kissing you doesn’t lie solely in the physical aspects. I can’t… separate my emotions as easily as you seem to be able to. I’m… If we continue to do that – I want to go home and you can’t come with me and I can’t stay here. My attachment to you is already something that others are manipulating and I’m –)_ Cas stops again and sighs, drooping like the air’s been let out of him.

Jesus, Cas really doesn’t have any idea how Dean feels. He mentally fist bumps himself for being awesome enough to actually be that good at building the walls in the kin-connection. But that immediately makes him feel like an asshole because _shit_. Keeping all that from Cas has only caused Cas all kinds of mental anguish or something and that… that fucking _sucks_. It’s bad enough that he’s stuck here, he doesn’t need Dean fucking with his feelings too.

 _(You’re scared.)_ And maybe he isn’t just talking about Cas here.

Cas sneers at the word, but he nods.

Dean’s fingers are itching to reach for him and he fists his hands over his knees. Everything he’s about to say to Cas… well, he should stop being a fucking hypocrite and follow his own advice. _(Stop over thinking things, Cas. Yes, it sucks the big one that they’re using our feelings against us. It’s pretty much the lowest blow anybody can give, but we’ll work around it. We’ll get us all out of here at some point. And if you want to kiss me, than go ahead. But don’t let some sons-of-bitches fuck us over on one of the few nice things we can have, okay?)_

He gives into the feeling finally and lightly touches Cas’s arm. _(So let’s, you and me, keep this simple. Do you want to kiss me?)_

Cas’s eyes drop to his lips for a moment again before he looks up and nods.

And that fluttery feeling goes into overdrive, like a fucking thousand butterflies are making their home in his chest. _(Do you want me to kiss you?)_

He nods again and Dean _really_ has to fight to keep from leaning in and kissing that stunned look from his face. _(Will us kissing make you want to do more things with me?)_ Say yes. For the love of all that is rock and roll, say _yes_.

Cas shrugs and Dean only feels a little disappointed with that. He rubs his thumb over Cas’s wrist. _(Will kissing make whatever you’re feeling for me worse?)_ He already knows it’ll probably get worse for him – knowing that Cas wants him, both to kiss and maybe more – How’s he going to be able to let Cas go after this?

 _(I… don’t know.)_ Cas shifts again.

 _(Do you want to try it?)_ Dean leans forward, resting his forehead against Cas’s and sighing softly. He’s a fucking idiot for even making this suggestion. It’s not going to help either of them in the long run. If anything, it’s going to make everything all that much harder. But he wants. He _wants_ and he’s not thinking with his dick here. He’s thinking with parts of him he’s had shut out for years and that fucking _frightening_.

 _(How about a trial run? Just for the rest of the day. You kiss me whenever you want and if you think it’s too much, we can stop and just go back to being – well –_ this. _)_ He’s not even sure if he’s making this deal for Cas’s benefit or his own anymore. _(If you think you’re safe and you can keep the physical and the emotional properly separated, then we can go ahead and keep at it until we get you off this boat again. How does that sound?)_

Cas shakes his head and Dean’s heart plummets. _(I don’t know. Do you even – are you –)_

Oh Jesus. Cas is asking how he _feels_. He forces himself not to wince. _(Do you really want to know the answer to that?)_ Fuck, Dean’s not even sure what his answer would be.

He just stares at Dean. Eyes uncertain and troubled and wow, Dean really wants to kiss him. Even if it’s just so he doesn’t look like that anymore. This is probably going to bite them in the ass, this goddamn testing period. But he wants it and Cas seems like he does too, so why can’t they have this?

Someone clears their throat again and Dean sits back, glaring at the asshole for interrupting. He could very well be kissing Cas now if the fuckwad hadn’t done anything. “Yeah, yeah. Give us a sec.”

Dean’s about to ask if Cas is okay with being carried down the stairs now, but Cas readjusts the clothes bundle, folds up his tail and leans forward. He’s doing the exact opposite he did to try and make it so Dean couldn’t pick him up. It’s the best permission he can give and Dean scoops him up without further question.

Of fucking course the hall is filled with all the lucky assholes who aren’t being fucked over from every angle by Lilith. When Cas sees everyone standing about, he tenses and all his fins flare at once, one of his ear-fins even catches Dean in the cheek. His thoughts explode with anxiety along the ribbons of the kin-connection and Dean immediately reaches up along them to rub calm over everything.

 _(Just ignore them.)_ He looks over at one of the guards and gestures with his chin to the shower door. “You want to make sure there’s no one in the showers? We’re going to lock up in there for a bit so no one can bother us.”

The guard glares at him and for a moment Dean thinks he’s not going to do it. But he goes ahead anyway and Dean relaxes marginally. They’re only standing there for a few seconds before Cas sends curiosity into the kin-connection along with the images of the symbols on the door. They’re talking about those when some girls actually come out of the room, wrapped in towels and it’s no surprise that they stop to gawk at Cas.

“Afternoon ladies.” Dean forces a smile and nods at them. Don’t they know it’s rude to stare? It’s endearing beyond all reason that Cas’s arms tighten a little around his neck and he nods too. “Sorry to interrupt, but we need to commandeer the showers for a little bit. Hope you don’t mind.”

Before anyone can do anything, especially things like ask questions about Cas, he ducks into the bathroom. The guard shuts the door behind them and he almost sighs in relief once he and Cas are finally alone again. He puts Cas down on one of the benches in the center of the room. Cas keeps looking around, examining every little thing like he’s never seen a bathroom before – which, granted, he probably hasn’t.

He’s locking the door when someone pounds on the other side and Dean’s damn heart tries to make a bid for freedom. For a moment he thinks it might be Lilith, but he thanks the powers of pie that it only turns out to be Sammy trying to scare the ever loving fuck out of him. Well no, he’s here to find out what the hell Dean is doing taking Cas to the showers of all places. Dean fills him in, barely, while Jess goes to get Sam’s unscented shampoo and body wash.

It’s still another twenty minutes at least before he actually even gets one of the showers turned on. After talking with Sam and Jess, he had Cas sniff test the bottles to make sure they didn’t smell too much for him. Then they’d put the vacuum sleeve on and he’d had to explain all about that. And it’s not even his shower that he turns on. It’s Cas’s. And he turned it on too hot for him to start with. He should have known better, since Cas is from the deep sea and that shit is _cold_.

Once the water is fine, Cas slides in under the spray and even though he doesn’t smile, he looks pleased as hell to be in water – however slightly – again. Dean explains about not blocking the drain before he goes to turn on his own shower.

_(Dean.)_

There’s something about the way Cas’s thoughts slide along his own that makes his fingers still over the handle. _(Yeah?)_

_(I want to kiss now.)_

He doesn’t mean to laugh, but it happens anyway. And it’s totally because he’s just really fucking happy that Cas even wants to kiss _him_. It takes every little bit of self control that he has to not drop to his knees in front of Cas and show him what kissing is really about right away.

 _(Yeah, okay. Just give me a moment.)_ Or maybe ten. Yeah, ten. He needs at least ten moments to think about how he’s going to do this.

Should he keep it like the first two? Nothing more than a touch? Or should he show Cas what other types of kisses there are? Of course he knows exactly which of those he’d like to do, but this isn’t supposed to be about him. This is supposed to be about Cas and helping him sort out his feelings or something. Dean can just lock up his own issues like he does everything else.

After getting the towels and all his shower shit in place, he kneels in front of Cas and makes damn sure that his nervousness is completely hidden behind the walls in his head. All he lets through is amusement – because Cas looks wide-eyed and nervous and adorable as fuck – and maybe a little bit of anticipation because he’s been looking forward to this since they made their little deal.

Cas is addictive in all the right ways. Dean can’t get enough of him and he hasn’t even really touched him yet. When he leans in, the ruffled fans along Cas’s tail start to ripple and he keeps flicking between looking at Dean’s eyes and his lips like he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be focusing on.

Dean touches Cas’s jaw lightly, dragging his fingers against the stubble lightly. _(Close your eyes, Cas.)_

He nods, following the soft instructions before leaning into the touch. It sends Dean’s heart into triple time because there’s just so much _trust_ in that one little gesture. It’s what makes his decision for him. He’ll keep this simple. Anything more kinda makes him feel like he might be taking advantage. Dean leans in the rest of the way and brushes his lips over Cas’s. Soft, barely there, and it still manages to send lightening down his spine.

Any plans to keep this short get blown out of the water the moment Cas fucking leans after him when he pulls away. It actually makes him smile because it’s really fucking cute the way Cas’s cheeks have gone red. Maybe Dean could just take one more, just one more little kiss. He presses his thumb under Cas’s chin, tilting his face up just a bit as he leans in for a firmer kiss.

Cas’s hands are still fisted and trembling in his lap and Dean really kind of hates that. If Cas’s hands should be anywhere, they should be on him. _(You can touch too, y’know.)_ Dean takes one of them, damp and cool and just so _Cas_ , and guides it to rest against the side of his neck. _(Just mirror what I do, okay?)_ Because it looks like he’s not going to be able to control himself and this will be going just a little further. It’ll be really nice if he doesn’t hate himself for this later.

There’s a quiet hum against his lips and Cas follows his instruction to the letter, tilting one way when Dean tilts the other and _Jesus_. Dean actually can’t resist licking quick and wet across Cas’s lips. Especially when he knows Cas is going to copy it. And he does. Dean licks out again, tongue sliding on tongue. Something _hot_ spikes along the kin-connection and Dean isn’t sure if he’s the one who groans or if it’s Cas. But someone definitely made a noise and all of Dean’s self-control evaporates like it never fucking existed.

He’s not exactly sure how it happens, but one second he’s tracing Cas’s teeth and the next he’s got one hand fisted in the thick hair at the back of his neck and the other is cupping the side of his face, thumb brushing the scales on his cheek. Dean has Cas’s head tilted back and he’s sucking at his tongue. And that – holy _fuck_ – that is getting all sorts of quiet moans out of him. Hell, Cas probably isn’t even aware of all the little noises he’s making. But each one is soaking under Dean’s skin and digging into his gut.

But nothing hits him harder than Cas’s fucking face when Dean finally draws away. Cas is flushed red and pretty right down into his chest, his eyes are hooded and unfocused and his breathing has gone all ragged. Dean can feel Cas’s pulse hammering against his palm where it’s resting on the side of his neck. His lips are swollen and spit-slick and Dean did that. He made Cas look like this and fuck. _Fuck_. He’s half-hard in his pants and he just wants to push Cas back under the shower, climb in after him and – _goddamn_.

“Shit, look at you…” He mumbles, satisfying himself with leaning in to kiss Cas hard just once more. Cas’s hand is actually _warm_ on his shoulder and that’s got to mean something, but all the blood in his brain is quickly diverting downward and he doesn’t really know what to think about that.

It almost hurts him to pull Cas’s hands away and he has to hold back from relocating them to certain places he would _really_ like to feel Cas’s touch on. _(If we keep this up, we’ll never get out of here. I’m going to shower really quick and then we’ll clean you up before going to meet with Sam and Jess, okay?)_

Hah. Like he’s really going to be just showering. After this, there’s literally no way he’s going to not masturbate at least a little. It’s been four days since he got off last and Cas just looks so… Jesus fuck he doesn’t think he even has a word for how Cas looks right now. Delicious might be one. And it really doesn’t help that Cas just keeps staring at him and all he can do is nod while the kin-connection is fogged over with all kinds of _wantwantwantwant_.

Dean pushes at Cas’s shoulder gently, shoving him back under the shower before he has the chance to do anything either of them might come to regret. _(Nice to know I can kiss you stupid, Cas. Try to have some semblance of a thought process going by the time I’m done.)_ He ducks around the corner and hopes Cas didn’t notice that he’s totally tenting his pants right now. _(And no peeking!)_

Because if Cas peeks, he won’t be able to be held responsible for his actions. He damn well might drag him down and find all the different ways he can draw those gasping little moans out of him. God, yes. Dean can practically hear Cas’s voice echoing off the walls already as he makes him lose control.

He’s never stripped off his pants so fucking fast in his life. The moment Cas is out of sight, Dean puts up as many walls between them as he can. There is no fucking way he’s going to let Cas sense what he’s doing through the kin-connection. Cas freaked bad enough when he found out Dean thinks he’s sexy and they’ve only just reached this brand new kissing plateau. As much as he wants to, there’s no way in hell he’s going to actually push Cas more than he’s willing to go.

Dean knows the water is on hot, but it actually feels cold the moment it hits him and he barely stifles a hiss. He turns the knob until it actually does feel warm and puts his back to it. The moment he has his hand on himself, he starts thinking about what Cas’s cock looks like. Does it look human, or does it look like… Jesus, he doesn’t even know. And just how much pleasure can Cas withstand before it comes out of wherever he hides it?

How could Cas want to do it? Dean’s seen too many different sides to his personality to know exactly what he’d be like in bed. But his imagination goes into overdrive anyways, jumping back and forth between Cas pushing him down and just _taking_ or being so nervous and fumbling that he doesn’t have any clue what to do and Dean has to walk him through everything.

Blushing and uncertain and asking Dean what to do. Shaking hands, wide eyes. And the sounds, fuck the _sounds_. Panting, gasping, moans and groans. Hissing Dean’s name when Dean touches him. Christ, if they ever get that far he’ll be the first person to ever get to touch Cas like that. The dark, possessive, selfish part of him eats that up, flaring hot and almost painful in his stomach.

There are any number of better people that Cas should have picked over him. But Cas chose Dean. It’s _Dean_ that he has some kind of feelings for and it’s _Dean_ he wants to kiss. Heat burns through his chest and deep into his gut, stealing his breath and fuck it’s only been four days but he might come faster than he has in years.

Something rustles off to his side and Dean automatically flinches, tightening his hold on the cloth he didn’t even realize he had in his hand. There are thoughts in his head that aren’t his own, something about soap – he doesn’t know or care because he looks over and his goddamn heart fucking _stops_ at the wide, surprised baby blues staring at him from the break in the curtain.

It’s reflex to throw the cloth and he feels only slightly guilty for catching Cas in the face hard enough to knock him back. He fumbles to cover himself while _not_ shrieking – because Dean Winchester does not _shriek_. “Jesus CHRIST, Cas! I said _no peeking!”_

The curtain falls back into place and if he strains to hear the sounds over the blood pounding in his ears, Dean thinks he might be able to hear Cas sliding back into his own shower stall. He definitely hears the sound of a curtain being pulled into place. But that’s all he can really spare to think on the matter because _Cas saw_. Cas saw him fucking into his fist and Dean almost wants to drop the walls in the kin-connection just to make sure that Cas is okay and not freaking the fuck out like Dean thinks he might be.

God, he hopes Cas isn’t freaking. If he wants to hope against hope, it would be really fucking awesome if Cas would be sitting on the other side of that wall – the same wall Dean is leaning his forehead against – and touching himself because seeing him like this was enough to make Cas do that. That would be the best case scenario right now.

Cas hunched over, shoulder against the tiles and his dorsal-fins spread as wide as they’ll go. Those white fingers playing over his chest and lap before he really starts touching himself. Maybe he’ll suck on his fingers first, tongue washing over those wicked claws and the webbing between them, before slicking up his dick. Would Cas use both hands or just one?

There is a special circle in hell reserved for people like Dean who can keep masturbating after being caught by the very person he was fantasizing about. He’s got reservations for his place there and everything. Because he’s not stopping. Fuck no, not when he’s this fucking close. Not when he can almost _see_ how Cas’s arms would shake while holding himself above him, Dean’s knees framing his chest because Cas is probably one of those guys who needs to kiss while he fucks Dean hard and fast, those thin hips snapping forward until Dean can’t take anymore and he comes all over his stomach.

And Cas would drag those wicked teeth of his across Dean’s bottom lip, tongue licking over the little red lines his teeth are sure to leave. He’d keep going, fucking Dean through the aftershocks, completely fucking _gone_ and just _lost_ to everything. Or would Cas be more tender? Rough, gentle, Dean doesn’t really care. He likes it every way and he wants them all. He _wants_ more than he’s wanted in a really long time and the burn under his skin is as terrifying as it is awesome.

Dean sinks his teeth into his cast, not even caring that he might rip the stupid sleeve covering it. He stifles a groan around it as he really does come over his fingers. His knees shake and he’s not even finished stroking before all the _guilt_ comes crashing back. Cas saw and Dean should have stopped everything, covered up, and checked to make sure he wasn’t having some kind of panic attack. Cas saw and he’s not stupid. He’d _know_ just what Dean was thinking about and why he was like that.

He thumps his head against the tiles and sighs heavily. “Fuck.”


	18. Cleaning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place during Chapter 14.**

Dean puts off seeing Cas for as long as he can. He draws out washing up and getting dressed. Cas wanted to clean up too – wash down his scales and everything, and there’s no way for him to get at his dorsal fins, so he’s probably going to need Dean’s help. Which means he shouldn’t get too dressed. He doesn’t want to put on his clothes only for them to get soaked by Cas’s shower or him flicking soap and water everywhere.

But the idea of being half naked in front of Cas – especially after what he just did and what Cas just saw – yeah. It’s not the best feeling idea in the world, that’s for sure. Fuck, okay. Best he can do right now is pretend it never happened and just go about like normal. If Cas knows that Dean is freaking out over this, than he’s probably going to freak out too – if he isn’t already.

He puts another cloth and the bottles of soap by the wall the separates the stalls and goes to extract his underwear from the clothes piled on the bench. Dean checks over his shoulder before dropping his towel, now rationally paranoid that Cas is going to pull another peeping Tom and peek around the curtain again.

It’s not like Dean has a problem with being naked in front of other people – especially other people that he seriously hopes to have some kind of relationship with. Not that he’s hoping for anything more than showing Cas what it’s like to kiss and touch someone – even if thinking that makes his chest hurt and Dean tries _really_ hard not to remember how it had felt when he woke up earlier thinking Cas was gone. And he tries even harder not to remember how _relieved_ he’d been to find out that he’s still here.

Yup. He’s just going to not think about any of that and kneel on his towel outside Cas’s stall. There are still walls blocking the kin-connection, like thick beads squared up along the ribbons that connection their brains through the mind meld to end all mind melds. Dean touches at the blocks, waiting for Cas to lower them so they can talk. He’s expecting some kind of anger, but everything he gets from Cas is apologies and nervousness and wow, okay. Cas isn’t angry. He thinks _Dean_ is going to be angry. But he’s not. He’s just really concerned about whether or not Cas is okay.

He lets that worry flicker over Cas’s thoughts. _(You okay, Cas?)_

His only answer is a burst of _yes_ without the actual word. Shit. Cas isn’t talking to him. That’s bad, right? Dean just got caught jerking right after making out with Cas and Cas isn’t talking – oh _fuck_. He’s had Cas back for less than a few hours and he’s already managed to fuck this up. Why can’t Dean have better control over his goddamn libido? Thinking with his dick instead of his brain – _fucking shit_.

None of that gets let into the kin-connection and he keeps trying to play it cool. _(Sorry for hitting you in the face with the cloth, it was a knee-jerk reaction. It didn’t hurt you or anything, did it?)_

There’s a scoffing noise on the other side of the curtain. _(Of  course not. I’m… sorry, too. Are you… are you angry with me?)_

Some of Dean’s anxieties fall away. Thank you almighty Gods, giver of pies. Cas isn’t mad with him! No, it’s the opposite. Cas is scared that _Dean_ is the angry one. That probably shouldn’t be as big a relief as it feels. Dean even laughs a little. Sometimes he forgets that he can really just be himself with Cas – even the perverted parts of him. Cas either doesn’t know that society frowns on it, or he really doesn’t care because fin-kin do it all the time, or any other number of reasons. It’s one of the many reasons that Cas is awesome.

 _(Nah, I’m not angry. Embarrassed coz’ you caught me jerking off… But not angry. It was pretty damn stupid of me to do that with you right here and all, but it was kinda a pressing issue and I wanted a hot shower instead of a cold one, y’know?)_ He pauses and realizes something, laughing again. _(Sorry, you probably actually don’t know about that. Cold showers help, um, they help – they make it –)_ There isn’t really any clean way to say this. _(- it kills erections. Anyway, are you – Is it okay if I move this curtain? You’re not – um – are you?)_

Maybe it’s not the greatest idea to be _hopeful_ – let alone letting that skim along the edges of the kin-connection – that Cas really is taking care of his own business. It would be a helluva stroke to Dean’s ego if seeing him jerking off is enough to get Cas to finally touch himself. If Dean remembers correctly, Cas hasn’t done _anything_ with his downstairs bits and that is just – Jesus – Dean doesn’t even know how you can possibly be Cas’s age, whatever that may be, and _not_ have at least had some kind of play time with himself.

_(I’m not doing anything.)_

Damn.  Well, no, not damn. That should be _good_. But still, _damn_.

Dean pulls the curtain open and something in his chest gives a weak little pull. Cas is sitting in the far corner, folded up into himself and looking over his shoulder and all his fins are lowered and thinned like he’s scared Dean’s gonna freak at him or something. He should already be able to tell through the kin-connection that he’s not upset, so the best bet is to just pretend nothing is wrong, right? Right. Yeah. Dean’ll just do that. And he’ll start with feeling the fucking _cold_ water – holy _shit_.

“Christ, that’s cold!” He turns it off and Cas blinks at him, fins flicking water from the spines and god _damn_ that is fucking cold! Dean jerks back from the splatter and Cas sends quiet little apologies into the kin-connection again.

They might as well get this over with before his refractory period is done and helping to wipe Cas down ends up giving him another stiffy. This is already going to be a trial and a half trying to do this without wanting to touchtouchtouch and what if Cas asks to kiss again? Baby, give him strength. Dean might not be strong enough for this.

He gets a few cloths and the soap bottle from around the corner. _(You still want to wash your scales?)_

Cas nods and starts to unfold slowly. There’s a little flash of relief that Dean chases after, curious - but Cas just shoves him away in the kin-connection as he turns around, sitting sideways in the stall. They don’t really talk while Dean sets him up with a cloth full of soap and imagines pictures at Cas on how to use a cloth to clean himself. If his mouth goes a little dry when Cas swipes over his lap and all his fins twitch and the fans along his tail ripple, well, that’s just – nope. Dean has _really_ gotta get his head out of that space and stop thinking like that if he wants to not scare Cas off from this kissing trial thing.

He’s still not sure if that was a good idea or a bad one.

The moment his own cloth is all soaped up and ready to go, Dean puts it to the end of Cas’s tail. Surprise crashes into his head and Cas even makes a soft “Oh!” sound before he twitches his tail out of reach. And that’s just confusing as all hell, because Dean has most definitely touched Cas’s tail before and he’s never had that kind of reaction before.

He sits back on his heels. _(Something wrong, Cas?)_

Cas doesn’t answer. Hell, he doesn’t even _look_ at Dean. He just folds his tail to his chest again and starts cleaning where Dean had just tried to. That makes something a little too much like panic start knotting at the base of his throat. He’s touched Cas before and the only difference between now and then and now is what happened a few minutes ago.

Maybe pretending like it didn’t happen isn’t the best anymore. He learned a while ago that when dealing with Cas you can’t dance around the matter. You need to be straight forward and as much as he hates having to be that blunt, Dean swallows that panic and pushes into the kin-connection with his confusion.

_(Is this because I jerked off right after we kissed? Coz’ I gotta say that I haven’t gotten any alone time since that night with Pam and that was like, four days ago or something. And if you had seen how you looked after we kissed – Actually, here.)_

It might be considered a dick move, but Dean shoves the memory of how Cas looked right after the kiss. The hooded eyes, spit-slick, kiss swollen lips – all of it. Heat throbs in his gut, kickstarting the embers left over from earlier and Dean has to squash that feeling right away. Though it’s an interesting reaction that Cas gets a few moments later when his ruffled fans flutter and he scrambles to make them stop and get control over himself again.

But he still doesn’t say anything. Cas just goes right back to cleaning himself and he’s ignoring all the little confused, curious tugs at those ribbons connecting them that Dean gives. It’s not until Dean lets Cas feel a little of his paranoia – because seriously, did Dean fuck this up or not? Is it a fin-kin thing or –

_(It’s not because of what you did, Dean.)_

Oh, sweet Jesus thank you.

 _(I understand that you were aroused and you had the opportunity to deal with it, so you did. It’s a normal thing to do for a healthy male.)_ Cas keeps explaining almost in a clinical kind of way while he folds his tail up over his shoulder to get at the underside. _(I pulled away because I haven’t been assisted with maintaining my scales since I was a child. It’s usually an activity one accomplishes alone.)_

See, that’s understandable. But Dean latches onto that ‘usually’ because that sounds interesting and not at all because he actually really wants to help wipe Cas down – any excuse to get to touch him, right? Yeah, that just makes him feel like a giant asshole.

_(Well, okay. When do you usually not do it alone?)_

Cas keeps cleaning and shrugs. _(One would have to be very close to someone to allow them to assist in cleaning their scales.)_

He takes Cas’s current cloth and gives him the unused one. _(How close?)_ Oh, that is a blush. Cas is definitely blushing. He doesn’t answer and just keeps cleaning and blushing and Dean is _really_ interested in the answer now. _(How close?)_

Cas caves and Dean mentally high-fives himself. _(If you were my sibling and I was either too sick or too injured to maintain my scales on my own, then I would allow you to help me. Otherwise, the only other person that should assist is –)_ He glances up for a second, a quick flash of blue eyes before he looks away again. _(- a bond-mate.)_

Well, shit. That’s –He wasn’t expecting that. _(Oh. Yeah, that – uh – that makes sense. I can understand why you wouldn’t want me helping then. Sorry.)_

 _(There’s nothing to apologize for. You didn’t know.)_ Cas keeps blushing and keeps cleaning and Dean isn’t sure if he’s blushing because he had to explain it, or if there’s something else to it.

No, he’s not disappointed. He’s _not_. Why would he be? Bond-mates are way more than what he’s looking for, right? Especially with Cas. Because he’s going to have to let Cas go at some point and Dean is going to try _really_ _hard_ not to think about how doing that already almost killed him once. He’s still riding high on the painkillers and the guilty relief that Cas is still here. Cas is still with him and he wants more from Dean and Dean wants to give him that – but there’s so much more to give now, isn’t there?

Fuck. It’s making his head hurt.

Distraction time.Because he’s starting to feel a bit like a creep just sitting here and watching Cas scrub himself clean. Not that he isn’t enjoying the view. _(Is there anything that I_ can _help with?)_


	19. Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 14.**

_(If you were a fin-kin, I think you would be a very desirable mate and anyone would be very jealous if I were to kiss you in front of them.)_

For a moment he’s flattered – pleased and more than a little smug about that. Dean kinda wants to go back in time and rub that in Cassie’s face. She didn’t know him half as well as Cas does and Cas still thinks he’d make a good – wait a goddamn second.

Behind the walls where half his emotions are hidden – the ones that are too dark or too worrying for him to want Cas to feel – something uneasy starts to twist. That word Cas just said - if that words means what he thinks it means, what the brief flash of an image that accompanies it makes him think it is, he’s not sure how he should feel about that.

Dean doesn’t usually recognize words from Cas’s language – Hell, half the language is emotions and images anyways. Cas doesn’t really have _words_ for most things. Anytime he does, Dean depends more on the images and what’s being said around it to figure out what Cas is talking about. The words slip in and out and around all the images and emotions and sometimes Dean just doesn’t notice that they’re there. But when Cas used his voice – when he _spoke actual words_ – yesterday morning in the rain, Dean had still _listened_ even though he was a little distracted with the kissing and the pain in his chest and thinking about how much he was going to fucking miss Cas.

He committed as much of it as he could to memory. If he was asked to recite it back, to try and pronounce them himself, he’d probably get every part of it wrong. But he can hear it in his head, he can remember Cas’s mumbled sounds vibrating against his lips. So while Cas is talking now, words slip-sliding around images and emotions, one of them jumps out at him. One of them draws a bright line in his head from where the kin-connection ribbons connect to his brain and where his memory of yesterday is, painting a circle around it.

The fact that he recognizes it like that surprises him – and that surprises Cas enough that his back-fins snap out and he lifts his head from his arms, head-fins flaring. Dean adjusts the hose so it won’t move once the pump is turned on, but he keeps glancing at Cas.

 _(Didn’t you say that yesterday? What’s that word mean?)_ The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes certain things about what Cas just said and what he was saying yesterday.

Cas’s eyes go wide, like he just got caught in the act. _(What word?)_

Dean’s stomach sinks. He fucking _hates_ it when people lie to him – especially when he catches them doing it.

Bobby gives him a curious look but Dean ignores it and he abandons the hose, knowing Bobby isn’t going to ask questions and he can take care of the rest on his own. If he needs help, there’s always Sam. He goes to the small tank where Cas has his arms crossed on the edge of the wall, his tail twisted under him. Cas’s back-fins lower slowly, flattening to his back. His worry is making the ribbons tremble and he looks like if he had the chance, he’d swim away where Dean wouldn’t be able to follow.

 _(‘Mate’.)_ Dean braces himself for this conversation. He hardens his thoughts, hardens his heart, and turns everything to stone. If Cas really did lie to him, he’s going to have to make sure that he doesn’t cave to wide baby-blues. He needs to be tough so Cas will know, no matter what, that he should _not_ lie to _him_. _(You said it yesterday with your goodbye. But right now we aren’t talking about stuff to do with goodbyes, so what does it mean?)_

Cas’s head-fins narrow and fold down too. It’s reminds Dean of a dog’s tail drooping when they’re disciplined. He doesn’t say anything. Instead that _nononono_ feeling in the kin-connection gets stronger, building on Cas’s existing nervousness over being caught out in this lie. He’s staring up at Dean with wide eyes – _scared_ eyes.

When he still hasn’t said anything by the time Bobby starts the pump up, Dean presses at him again. _(Cas, did you lie to me?)_

His lips press together in a thin line, acceptance settling through the kin-connection and smothering all those nerves making the ribbons tremble. Cas closes his eyes and exhales slowly in a resigned sigh. _(Yes.)_

Fuck. Why did he think Cas would be different from everyone else? Why did he think Cas would never lie to him? _(Why?)_

 _(I didn’t want to tell you what I said.)_ There’s no hesitation now. Cas is caught in his lie and he’s facing the consequences like the soldier he is. Dean would admire him for it if he wasn’t so _pissed_.

_(Why not?)_

Cas sinks a little further into the water and he looks away, glances everywhere else but at him. That just makes Dean angrier. _(You wouldn’t like it.)_

_(Let me be the judge of that.)_

He just shakes his head and this time Cas hides his face in his arms. The ruffled fans on his tail are going wild and somewhere deep down Dean feels a little bad. As messed up as it is, he and Cas do have some kind of _relationship_ going on – even beyond the kissing trial. And as far as Dean knows, this is the first kind of relationship Cas has ever had. So it’s not like he knows what you do and don’t do with a relationship. Maybe he should be a little more lenient about this – but a lie is a lie.

 _(I don’t want to tell you. It will make you uncomfortable.)_ Cas’s anxiety twists around every thought and Dean tries to ignore it, tries not to let it affect him. _(Don’t ask again. Please, Dean. Don’t ask.)_

No. Abso-fucking-lutely not. _(I’m not going to forget this and let it go, Cas. I don’t like being lied to.)_ Dean starts to shut off, starts turning off everything else except the anger and even that’s stretched thin. It feels terrifying and it’s his own damn emotions – he can only imagine how it might be freaking Cas out.

He needs to get across to Cas that he can’t pull this bullshit with him. Not when you’re sharing a connection like this where you’re in each other’s heads. Cas can’t use a language barrier as an excuse to hide things from him, especially when he’s been caught in a lie.

It’s extreme, and pretty fucking harsh of him, but Dean knows exactly what to say to get Cas to talk. _(You’ve got two choices right now. Tell me what you said or we can break this connection right now and I’ll go hang out with Pam and Jess until I’ve calmed down enough to come back.)_

That _nononono_ gets even louder. Like it’s going from lowercase to capslock in Dean’s mind and Cas’s head pops up, eyes wide. There’s a brief pulse of something that feels like jealousy and Dean knows exactly why. He’s a giant dick for trying to blackmail Cas like this, but he needs to know what that word really means what he thinks it means. Dean wants to know _why_ Cas thought it was something that would make him uncomfortable.

Dean knows the exact moment it clicks in Cas’s head that he said that on purpose, and he answers with _rage_. Cas actually _snarls_ at him, lips drawn back and those wicked sharp teeth bared. Even all his fins flare up and out again as irritation fills the kin-connection. And then he’s gone, back under the water and curling up to press his face against his tail when he folds and hugs it to his chest.

Cas is pissed and Dean deserves it, but Dean is pissed and Cas deserves it. It’s going to be a never ending cycle of anger between them and it’s frustrating the hell out of Dean that Cas won’t just _tell_ him. And since Cas isn’t saying anything, that just shows what his decision is and it’s disappointing as hell.

He starts to focus, gathering the ribbons of the kin-connection so he can imagine those great big scissors cutting them in half. Cas tugs at them hard, shaking Dean’s grip off them. That _nonono_ gets louder and Dean waits for him, waits for the resignation again. What he’s not expecting is just how hard Cas throws memories at him. They hit him like he’d run into a brick wall and _pain_ explodes across his brain. It’s enough to send Dean back a step and he hisses loud enough for Sam to look up, worried.

Dean would wave him off, but he’s too busy seeing the memories Cas is assaulting him with. It’s trippy as hell to be looking through Cas’s eyes at a world he’s never seen, and a face that’s his and isn’t his. _This_ is what Cas thinks he’d look like as a fin-kin? Holy shit, Dean looks badass. Dark green scales, light green glow – hell, even his webbing is green.  There’s scales on his cheeks, gills on his neck, and his grin is a little freaky with the pointed teeth but he’s still kickass looking. Dean kinda wishes he really looked like that – at least it would make this _thing_ with Cas easier. Things wouldn’t be so _weird_ between them.

The dream plays out, conversations translated and feelings pumped into the memories as if Dean _is_ Cas and he’s the one realizing that this life where he has everything that he wants is all a dream. And Dean learns, definitively, what a ‘mate’ – a ‘bond-mate’, on top of that – is.

It should scare him that Cas thinks that – that Cas _wants_ that. With him, no less. They haven’t even known each other two weeks and Cas’s subconscious is already filling his head with dreams about them being married. They haven’t even known each other two weeks and Dean already knows that it hurt like hell to have to say goodbye. Cas is dug so deep into Dean’s head that his own damn brain doesn’t feel right without having Cas there.

Dean’s not scared. If anything, he _likes_ it. He likesknowing that Cas wants him that bad even though they’ve barely kissed. It feels awesome, being wanted like that. And for all Dean knows, fin-kin relationships develop faster because they’re constantly _there_ , filling the hollow spaces that were dug out of by others. Dean hasn’t hidden much of anything from Cas, just the darker parts of him that he doesn’t show anyone. But Cas might even know him better than Sam does.

Once the memory is done, Dean is left leaning back against the main tank and a helluva lot less confused about this than he should be. It takes him a little time to pull himself back together, but he does eventually and he reaches for Cas only to hit a wall. A lot of walls. Enough that Cas might as well have just cut the kin-connection for how much is getting through.

No matter how hard Dean pulls and pushes at them, the walls don’t budge. He can’t find a crack and the ribbons are stiff, unforgiving. Dean wishes he was confused. He wishes he didn’t know why Cas is hiding from him like this. Cas is just as _scared_ of this as Dean should be. But he’s not. He’s not scared, he’s – Jesus, what is he?

Then it hits him. He’s _sad_. Cas wants more and Dean wants more – maybe not as much as Cas does right now, but he might. If they had the chance, Dean might end up wanting exactly what Cas wants. He almost sort of does – or at least he knows he wants that chance. But they’re not going to get it. They’ll never get to be more. And he hates it.

He _hates_ the idea that Cas will go home and he might forget about him, or that he might find another gay fin-kin – now that he knows what he likes and that it’s possible - and he’ll let someone else kiss him, let someone else _touch him_. No, Dean doesn’t even want to think about that.

He starts pulling off his shirt.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sam sounds absolutely _scandalized_.

“Getting in. Could you two give us a moment?” He tosses his shirt on the bed and gets the vacuum sleeve from the drawer, fumbling to get that on.

Bobby and Sam are cleared out before Dean even has his pants off. As much as he hates talking, that’s what he and Cas need to do right now and if he stops to think about it, he might chicken out. So Dean doesn’t think twice about climbing into the tank, using the counter to get a leg up over the edge of the glass.

He just wishes he knew what he’s going to say. 


	20. Overthinking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 15.**

No matter how many times he kisses Cas, it is _awesome_ every. Single. Time. It’s like a transatlantic mystery

Dean presses another kiss to Cas’s temple as he puts his tail into the tank so Cas is basically sitting on the edge. His skin still tingles fucking _everywhere_ and he’s being blue-balled so bad right now – by his little brother’s _fiancée_ of all people – but Dean doesn’t care. He’d felt how Cas had been trembling before Jess came in and that he’d been struggling so hard to try and get himself under control. Hell, Cas is probably hiding a mild panic attack from him right now.

 _(You’re going to over think what just happened and I’m just saying, you shouldn’t.)_ He should listen to his own advice this time around too. _(Don’t think about it. It happened, it was awesome, and it should totally happen again.)_ Fuck, it should happen right now. Cas should let him push him to the bed and they should rub against each other like over eager teenagers – shit, no.

No, they shouldn’t. That’s too much for Cas right now. Especially when he just agreed to _kisses_ and not everything that happened five minutes ago, feet away, on his bed. Anything else can wait until Cas is ready – if he’s even still willing to do anything with Dean in the morning. _(There’s a whole lot more that you haven’t gotten to try yet and it’s all pretty damn awesome. Just enjoy it. Don’t think about it.)_

Cas makes a little humming noise and his tail swirls through the water. His thoughts are half-hidden from him and Dean is only getting his contemplation and not really anyhing else. If Cas is freaking out, he doesn’t want Dean to know about it and that’s maybe driving him a little crazy. He _wants_ to know what Cas thinks about how he basically just laid claim to Dean by making new marks over Pam’s. And Dean is going to try not to think about how he _let_ Cas put a hickey on his neck in a ridiculously obvious place when he’s refused a hundred times over to let Pam do the very same thing.

He almost misses the gentle kiss to his jaw or the soft ‘good night’. Dean stifles what might possibly be the most ridiculous of smiles and helps Cas slide the rest of the way into the tank. Cas settles himself comfortably on the bottom, curled up and cute and Dean should have turned his damn brain off before that stupid thought about a wet bed had gotten out. He’d sell his kidneys to have Cas curled cool and _there_ next to him after what they just did.

Dean crouches and waves the moment Cas’s eyes meet his after he’s made himself comfortable. _(Sweet dreams, Cas.)_

Appreciation bursts warm along the ribbons of the kin-connection and Dean smiles. Cas’s eyes slide shut and Dean stands, backing away until the bed presses into the backs of his knees and he’s forced to sit. He watches Cas until the light on the edge of his mind dims and he can actually tell that Cas has fallen asleep.

And like a creeper, he keeps watching for a while after that. Though he’s not really looking _at_ Cas. It’s more like he’s looking in his general direction while thinking about… about _everything_. Everything he just told Cas not to think about. Absently, he strokes the sensitive bruise over his Adam’s Apple. He thinks less about the feel of Cas’s teeth around the edges of it, or the possession that had clouded the kin-connection while Cas sucked the mark into his skin – and he thinks more about _why_ he had let Cas do that.

Time and time again he’s had to stop Pam from doing the same damn thing and making sure that she kept everything under his shirt and out of sight. But then Cas had been staring at him with heat in those goddamn baby blues while they were in the bathroom and Dean hadn’t thought twice about tilting his head back and asking where Cas wanted to put a hickey on him. Hell, he’d even shivered when his cool fingers had traced his neck.

That’s not even touching on how he’d turned it all around and – Christ on a cracker, he can’t even _think_ about what he’d said, what he had done, without feeling fucking _stupid_ for it. He never even left a hickey on Cassie – mostly because she said that wasn’t really her thing the one time he’d tried to do it. But it’s – he hasn’t – he’s never asked _anyone_ since then. Not like he asked Cas.

But he _had_ asked Cas. And in possibly the most possessive way he’s ever asked anyone fucking anything in his entire life. That’s what happens when he lets his damn dick do the thinking. Jesus, he really has to stop thinking about what happened in the bathroom because Cas had damn near popped a boner of his own – and _yes_ , Dean was disappointed that Cas apparently has the will of the pope in him and he’d managed to hold it back like he had who the hell even knows how many times today alone.

Oh man. What would have happened if Jess hadn’t walked in? Dean had had no problem with letting Cas push him down and just _take_. Fuck, he’d been half-hard just leaving his own hickey on Cas’s neck. And he’d finally gotten to have Cas pressed against him like he’s wanted to for over a week. Jesus, he’d even fucking humped Cas like a dog in heat while Cas had been over him. Given the chance, it’s one hundred percent likely Dean would do it all again – and please, almighty Gods of Rock and Roll _let that happen again_.

Dean buries his face in his hands and tries to will his damn boner away. Jess had probably seen it through his pants and Cas was _definitely_ aware of it – considering he’d been really damn adamant about rubbing up against Cas like it was the only thing he ever wanted to do. And Cas hadn’t really done much aside from make it _worse._ He’d made all sorts of little noises – gasps, choked off whimpers, and muffled moans – even as he was sucking and licking and this isreally   _not helping_ with the boner situation.

He could always jerk off again. But he’s got no guarantee Cas won’t wake up while he’s doing it and he’s not leaving Cas alone in the room. Especially not while he’s defenseless and sleeping, and not when Alistair, Gordon or Azazel could be watching for just such a moment. And who the fuck knows what those asshats would do to Cas while Dean’s gone?

If he really wants his dick to calm down without the satisfaction of a good ol’ fashioned hand job, then he’s going to have to _stop thinking about Cas_. Which, considering how Dean’s been for the last week and a half is probably going to be fucking impossible. He’s over thinking and this is everything he told Cas not to do and he’s sleeping soundly while  Dean is going out of his fucking mind about all of this.

Dean stretches out on his back and tries reading his copy of Cat’s Cradle, settling into the familiar words and hoping they’ll be a good enough distraction. He reads until he falls asleep and he’s got no idea how long he’s out for, but he jerks up from his pillow at – he doesn’t even know what woke him. There’s wet around his mouth and Dean scrubs the back of his hand over it, flipping the pillow so the drool is hidden.

Cas is still sleeping, going by the kin-connection and how his glow is muted. The lights are dimmed and Dean doesn’t really remember doing that. But then again, he doesn’t remember when he actually fell asleep either. Dean yawns, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. What the hell even happened to his book? Something is digging into the bottom of his foot and oh, that’s where it went. He relocates it to the drawers and contemplates actually getting up and turning off the lights completely. Though he doesn’t even know what freaking time it is.

One glance at the clock tells him he’s slept in way later than he thought he would – especially after basically being in a coma for two days. It’s midmorning, which means he’s been sleeping for about five hours – if he fell asleep anywhere near when he thinks he did – so that’s not so bad. Dean stands, stretches and rubs a hand through his hair. Maybe he should text Sam to bring breakfast while he wakes Cas, that way he can go take a piss while Sam is here.

He digs his phone out of his pocket, but a thump distracts him from ever even flipping it open. Dean looks over, positive that the sound came from Cas’s tank. Cas is still curled on his side, but the end of his tail isn’t tucked under his head anymore and it hits the glass again. How that doesn’t wake him, Dean doesn’t have the slightest clue. Hopefully he’s not having any nightmares. From what Dean can tell through the mostly quiet kin-connection, he’s sleeping just fine.

Cas’s shoulders twitch and he does this weird twist with his head, like he’s nuzzling against the floor. His tail smacks the glass again and it takes it happening another two times for Dean to notice Cas’s hips are twitching with every hit. As interesting as _that_ is, Cas’s forehead is creased and the way his lips keep moving has Dean thinking he’s probably making noises that he can’t hear because he’s in the water.

Holy fuck, what if Cas really is having a nightmare and he just isn’t good enough with the  kin-connection to notice it?

Dean crosses over to the tank and crouches, hand raised and ready to knock on the glass. And then he sees _it_ and pretty much every major bodily function stops. His brain, his heart, his lungs, everything. He falls back on his ass and he’s gotta be fish-mouthing or something but there’s no air in his chest or oxygen in his brain for him to really be thinking right.

 _Oh_.

“Guess it’s not a nightmare.” He chokes out, the words strained and quiet.

No, Cas is definitely not having a nightmare. Not unless it’s an erotic nightmare of some kind because seriously that’s his – Cas is – it’s his – _holy shit_. Dean’s having trouble wrapping his brain around it. Of course he’d kind of figured that the bulge of muscle on the front of Cas’s tail was where his dick was kept, but he wasn’t sure how it would go from being _in_ to being _out._ At this point, he still doesn’t know. But it’s out and it’s – _fuck_. Is it – Jesus, was it _glowing_? And it – shit, _shit_. It didn’t really even look human. Sorta, but not quite?

He wants to get another look. An up close and personal look. But even he knows that watching Cas have a wet dream is crossing so many lines that if Cas ever found out Dean would probably ruin every single chance he has with him. And it doesn’t help that Cas’s face is being beyond ridiculouslydistracting right now.

His stupid pink lips – that look almost painfully dry when he’s out of the water for more than an hour – keep moving. Now that Dean knows what’s going on, he can perfectly picture exactly what kind of noises Cas must be making. He’s half tempted to stick his head in the tank just to see if he can hear them. Little panting gasps and half-moans – everything Dean had heard between spit-slick kisses and when he’d been putting his own brand on Cas’s neck – right out in the open where everyone, even fucking _Lilith_ , will be able to see it and know that Cas is _his_.

Which is a fucking _terrifying_ thought. Everything wrong with their current situation is because Lilith wants to _own_ Cas. And Dean – he doesn’t want that. He wants Cas in every way, but he wants him to have his freedom. He wants that more than he wants all the other things and if he gets to have _Cas_ before they never see each other again – well, that would just be fucking awesome. Even if it sends a sharp jolt of pain through his chest to think about it.

And Dean should really be looking away now. He really, really should. Especially since his goddamn brain won’t _shut off_ and image after image after fucking image keeps playing out in his head. Images of Cas making those same face while he’s spread out across the bed, long white fingers and the blue webbing between them curled into Dean’s hair and pushing, urging Dean to swallow down more of him.

There’s a truly horrible situation developing in his pants and _Dean needs to look away_. And the best way to do that is climb up onto the bed and lay facing the wall. If he flinches every time Cas’s tail hits the glass, it’s not because he’s worried Cas is going to wake up and reach through the kin-connection and touch his thoughts while he’s palming the front of his jeans.

Dean wraps his brain in as many walls as he can focus on and tries hard not to feel too guilty about humping his hand. Getting himself off isn’t exactly something new to Dean, but doing it to the thought that barely five feet from his bed Cas is squirming untouched and fast asleep – that is just a whole new low for him. And it doesn’t help that he _wants_ to touch Cas. Touch him like no one’s ever touched him before and work him through his first conscious orgasm.

He turns his face and bites the pillow, fingers fumbling to work his jeans open and get his dick out before he comes in his pants like a teenager. Dean can’t stop thinking about how Cas’s pale skin would flush red like it did after their first kiss before their showers. Or the way his head would tilt back, wicked sharp teeth digging into his bottom lip as Dean rocks in his lap.

And now that he’s got a rough idea of what Cas is packing, he _really_ fucking hopes that they manage to get that far. It’s not that Dean has any kind of a size-kink or something – hell anything feels good as long as it can hit the right spots – but he does kind of really enjoy the burn of a good stretch and from what he’d seen that’s exactly what he’ll get.

Sweet gods of pie, it’s not even just sex he wants with Cas. He wants _everything_. He wants Cas curled around him – or him around Cas – at night while they sleep. He wants to introduce Cas to every awesome food there is, as long as it doesn’t fuck with his digestive system. He wants to show Cas the world, teach him everything there is to know about all the shit that happens on land and hell, he even wants to _learn_ in return all about Cas and his family, his colony, his whole fucking _everything_.

Dean wants everything Cas can give and it’s taking everything he’s got not to ask for it. Because he can’t. He shouldn’t even have suggested that damn kissing trial for last night – and what if Cas doesn’t want to keep doing it today. If this keeps up, if they get any closer – shit, how the fuck are they ever supposed to say goodbye? It almost killed him once to give Cas up and now he’s got him more than he did before and –

And thoughts like these _should_ be killing his boner. Why is it still being so fucking insistent and his goddamn hips won’t stop rolling forward into his hand. At this rate, he’s going to chew a hole through the pillow with how hard he’s biting it to keep from making any noises. Dean wiggles his other hand up under his shirt, finding all the little spots that make him twitch before zeroing in on his nipples.

He can’t help wondering, as he pinches and rolls the hardening peak, if Cas would be sensitive here too. Would Cas arch into the touch, mouth falling open as another of those little gasps escape him. Or would he be like some of the guys Dean’s been with before and slap his hands away and direct him to better places. Fuck, does Cas even _know_ what spots will make him whimper? Oh holy shit. What if Dean gets to be the one to help him discover them all?

A half dozen fantasies and a good few minutes of stroking – a couple thump swipes of the head and a few well placed twists of his wrist – and Dean’s coming with a groan muffled into the pillow. The guilt that was never really gone to begin with settles heavy in his chest and he tries hard not to look toward the tank as he cleans up and changes his clothes.

Dean lays on his side again, staring at the wall. He only hears the thump a few more times before there’s silence and he utters silent thanks for it. Forcing him to sit here while someone in Cas’s dreams is getting him off – and that burn of jealousy is _entirely_ inappropriate right now – could probably qualify as some kind of torture.

It’s not too long after that when he feels the light on the edge of his mind brighten. Cas touches his thoughts and Dean flinches, really fucking hoping that his usual walls are keeping back what they should. It’d be nice if he could start thinking things through with his head instead of his dick before he fucks up what little relationship – wow, _that’s_ a terrifying word – he has with Cas before it even really gets underway. 


	21. Screaming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 16 and Chapter 17.**

Cas doesn’t scream.

There’s nothing but a spike of _hurtpainDEAN_ through the kin-connection and an almost painful tingle down Dean’s back. It’s a familiar, faint ache - like whenever he remembers being stabbed and gets a phantom twinge in his lower back. It doesn’t hurt _him_ but he knows that it’s hurting Cas.

Cas’s whole body seizes and he makes a weird choked noise, a sound Dean’s never heard from him before. Then the kin-connection is just – it’s just fucking _gone_. The pulsing light on the edge of his mind vanishes more violently than it’s ever done before. It’s nothing like when Cas just cuts the link like usual. The kin-connection gets torn apart and leaves Dean staggering, his vision swimming.

He knows Gordon is down for the count, twitching and drooling on the carpet. And Alistair is doubled over, clutching his head and groaning. Lilith is on her feet, holding her necklace like it’s a goddamn lifeline and glaring down at Cas as if he’s the source of all her problems.

Cas, who’s laying on the floor, unconscious and twitching.

Dean’s heart skips a beat or two, or three. Hell it might as well have fucking _stopped_ for how hard it suddenly is to even breathe. He gets three steps from the trolley before the doors fly open and guards practically tackle him off his feet. One of them gets their arm around his neck and Dean’s shouts – which have consisted of nothing but different ways to say Cas’s name – cut off as they start to pull him back.

“Take him back to the room.” Lilith waves her hand almost dismissively and steps over Cas’s tail on her way to shake Alistair’s shoulder. “And send someone in to take Gordon down to the infirmary.”

The guards grunt an affirmative like the fucking robots that they are. If Dean’s arm wasn’t broken and they weren’t cutting off his goddamn _air supply,_ then he’d be throwing them off. As it stands, they drag him out of the room kicking and not-quite-screaming as he curses them out with every swear word under the sun. He may or may not make several rather vivid threats to Lilith’s wellbeing if she even so much as hurts one fucking hair on Cas’s head.

Fuck, he doesn’t even know what she already did to him. At least Cas managed to take out Gordon and sort of debilitate Alistair before - before – before whatever the fuck had happened to him.

Dean struggles all the way to the deck and back down to the science floor. He goes so far as trying to actually _bite_ the son-of-a-bitch with his arm around his neck and he hurls another few choice insults – something about sisters and various farm animals – when he gets tossed ass over ankles into the room he shares with Cas.  

Sam and Jess are at his side immediately, helping him to his feet and even going as far as dusting him off. Dean doesn’t have a damn clue about when they got to the room or why they’re even there. All he knows is that _Cas isn’t here_ and he’s alone with Lilith, Alistair and Gordon. And he doesn’t give a shit if Gordon is out and Alistair is going to have the mother of all headaches. Cas is unconscious and _alone_.

He shakes them off and goes for the door. No explanations, no ‘I’m fine’, nothing but more dark swears and ‘oh no you fucking _don’t_ ’. Dean pulls the door open and no less than three guns are pointed in his face. Two he can tell from first glance are just dart-guns. The third is an honest to God shoot-you-with-bullets-and-you’d-probably-die _gun_.

Time to put on his brave face.

“What’s she doing with Cas?” He hisses, taking a step out of the room. The guns get cocked and Sam jerks him back with two mammoth hands on his shoulders. Dean tries to shrug them off. He gets out another question – possibly about Cas, possibly about what their sisters do on an average Friday night – before Sam manages to get him far enough into the room for Jess to get the door closed.

“Dean, that was a _gun_.” Sam spins him around and shakes him by the shoulders a bit. “Calm down and tell us what the hell happened.”

Dean smacks his hands away and starts pacing. “I don’t fucking know, Sammy! One minute the plan was going just fine. Cas is just about to mind fuck Alistair and Gordon into next week and all of a sudden he just – he was _gone_.” He nearly trips over the pump and realizes – vaguely – that’s why Sam and Jess are there. To fill the tank. But that wouldn’t have been necessary because they were supposed to get out today – not that Sam and Jess knew about the plan. Oh, and the mini-tank is gone too. Lovely.

“I don’t have the first fucking clue what Lilith did but Cas was down and twitching and the kin-connection just – it just _disappeared_.”

His voice breaks on the last syllable and he comes up short. He must look crazy – wild eyed, breathing hard, red faced and angry as fuck. Not to mention scared as all hell because _what did Lilith do_. Not knowing is killing him. She did something to Cas that made him drop like a bag of bricks and Dean doesn’t have the first clue about what did it.

“He was hurting, Sam.” Dean looks to his little brother, desperation creeping into his voice no matter how hard he tries to keep it out. “The bitch did something to him and it _hurt_. I could feel it like an old memory and it was bad. It pulled him outta my head before I knew what was going on and he was down and he’s alone with those fuckwits right now and I –”

Jess stops him with firm hands on his shoulders and soft, insistent blue eyes – not anywhere near like Cas’s eyes – and Jesus what are they doing to him right now?

“Dean. Take a deep breath.” Jess pats him once on the cheek – not a slap, but hard enough to shake out whatever thoughts are beating about inside his head at the moment. “Lilith doesn’t want Castiel physically broken. He’s her prize and she’s not going to let Alistair actually do anything to him. She’ll try and scare him a bit, maybe, and that’s that. You’ll see him again before you know it.”

He doesn’t get the chance to object before Jess has him in a hug that’s closer to a headlock and she’s stroking his hair and Dean is starting to feel really awkward. It goes on for a few minutes longer than it has any right being and Sam’s the one who clears his throat to get them to stop. Dean starts his pacing again. Jess stink-eyes him a bit before she sits down at the computer and starts tapping away. Sam joins her and Dean is left to cross the room on his own. For all of five minutes before there’s noises in the hallway.

Dean gets the door a open a good foot before another gun cocks and Sam is all but kicking the damn thing shut again, nearly catching Dean’s fingers. He all but fucking _snarls_ at Sam for interrupting and turns on him, ready for a fight – or at the very least a decent tongue thrashing. But Sam’s face has gone all soft and puppy-like and Dean’s complaint gets stuck somewhere mid-throat. He slumps down on his bed and waits with his head in his hands.

He waits like Jess told him to – for a good couple hours before anything happens. Dean gets up and paces for random intervals of time before flopping out across his bed until he can’t hold still anymore. Then the whole process starts over again.

It’s about the fifteenth repeat and he’s circling around the tank when they hear it muffled through the walls for the first time. Dean’s heart nearly fucking stops again and he bolts for the door. This time the handle doesn’t even turn and he nearly breaks his other goddamn hand banging on the door until Sam pulls him away. His voice goes hoarse shouting for Cas and demanding to know what the fuck they’re doing to him because he _knows_ that was _Cas_ and he was fucking _screaming_.

Dean starts throwing things. Jess takes cover on the other side of the tank, by the bed she and Sam brought it days ago. Sam tries to stop him, but he gets a pillow to the head for it and narrowly avoids getting beaned by the books that had been on his dresser. Panic and worry and everything Dean’s already been through when Sam was dying in a goddamn back alley from a drug overdose is making his insides twist and he feels like he’s going to throw up but he’s too mad to even see straight.

He could pry the hinge-pins out of the door again like he did before, but that’s not going to do anything against the goddamn guards and their guns waiting out in the hallway. He doesn’t touch Lilith’s fucking _precious_ _equipment_ on the desk, but anything else that isn’t bolted down gets tossed every which way until Sam manages to knock him off his feet and onto his bed, essentially sitting on his back to keep him pinned.

It only works for as long as they don’t hear Cas cry out again. It’s not exactly a _scream_ , but it’s enough to get Dean seeing red. It really doesn’t help his broken arm to be bodily tossing his beast of a younger brother to the floor. The door gets another pounding and Dean is fast running out of threats and insults to shout at the guards.

This time, when Sam gets him back on the bed, it’s Jess who sits on him. They all know he’d never throw her off and Dean spends several minutes swearing the pain of the very fires of hell on Lilith and whoever the fuck she has doing her dirty work for whatever they’re doing to Cas. It’s not long after that, ten minutes at the most, before they all hear it. Jess gasps and Sam makes some choked noise, but Dean stops breathing all together. The cries this time aren’t as muffled and Dean doesn’t want to think why. All he can hear is Cas.

“Dean! _Dean!_ ”

And it doesn’t stop.

Jess gets up by the fifth time Cas cries out for him and Dean is on his feet and for the door, guns be damned. There’s fear and pain in Cas’s voice and it’s destroying Dean from the inside out. He’d promised that he would protect Cas and he’s failed time and time again and as if he didn’t hate himself enough for that – this had to happen.

Cas stops for a moment, at about the same time the door opens and Alistair walks in. Then he starts again and it’s so fucking _clear._ Jesus, he must be just down the hall. Something tight and painful pulses in his chest when he realizes just _what_ room they probably have Cas in and Dean’s insides shrivel.

Alistair seems worse for the wear. His already gaunt face is drawn and he looks tired. The broken nose isn’t helping much. Dean doesn’t even feel slightly vindicated knowing that Cas’s mind fuck hurt Alistair at least a little. Cas is calling for him and that’s all Dean can hear, that’s all he really cares about. Everything else doesn’t matter right now.

“Winchester, you’re coming with me.” Alistair starts and then levels another dart-gun at Dean when he steps forward. “Not you. I want the sasquatch.”

“But Cas –”

“Lilith doesn’t want you talking with him right now. If you’re lucky, she doesn’t mean that permanently.” Alistair gestures at Sam again. “Let’s go. I’ve got tests I want to run.”

Dean takes another step forward but Cas’s voice cuts out suddenly. There’s silence and he hesitates, heart pounding against his ribs because what the ever loving fuck could make Cas stop entirely? Sam follows Alistair out and the door is shutting when Cas starts _screaming_ again. Dean goes for the handle but it’s already fucking locked.

“Sam! Help him! Help Cas!” Dean shouts, slamming his fist against the door until Jess tries pulling him away.

He knows Sam can take care of himself and yeah, there’s some concern about what tests Alistair needs him for. But Sam’s a big boy and Lilith is making Cas scream bloody murder and Dean can’t help him, he can’t do anything because he’s so fucking _useless_ and everyone keeps stopping him.

Why can’t he keep anyone he cares for safe?

The screaming gets muffled again – they must have shut the other door – and it stops altogether after that. Dean takes up pacing again, worry and anger and every little thing churning in his stomach until Jess guides him to sit on one of the chairs, pushing at his shoulders until he’s folded over and his head is between his knees. She says something about how he looks like he’s about to throw up and she starts rubbing his back.

Dean tries waving her off a few times but she smacks his hand and keeps herself parked next to him, hand on his back and making sure he stays where he is. She’s doing so little but at the same time she’s doing a shit ton more good than she knows. Dean ends up leaning into the touch and just accepting the little comfort that she’s giving. At some point she leans over and turns on the pump and he’s only grateful for it because it means he won’t hear Cas’s screams if it starts up again.

It doesn’t make him forget that shit is happening to Cas. At least Sam is with him and Cas likes Sam enough that hopefully having him there is somewhat helpful. Maybe that’s why Cas hasn’t screamed again. Maybe Sam being there is enough to get Lilith to stop whatever she was doing and Cas being quiet is actually a good thing. Dean doesn’t want to think about any of the other reasons why Cas wouldn’t be making any noise. Just trying not to think about it fixes a lump in his throat that hurts to swallow around.

Jess doesn’t let him stand until she’s certain he’s calmed down. And Dean has – but his insides still twist and he still hates himself. He wants to help Cas, but even if he manages to pull the door down again, there are guns on the other side just waiting to knock him out or actually kill him. Lilith won’t even bat an eye at his death, but he can’t leave Sam and Bobby like that – and he sure as hell isn’t leaving Cas alone either.

At least the others would still try and get Cas out. But Dean doesn’t know if Cas needs him as much as he hopes he does. God, if Cas needed him like Dean needs him – that would just – no. _Fuck_. How many times does he have to tell himself not to think about that? All it does is make pain flare behind his sternum because he can’t keep Cas. He doesn’t belong here and he has a home that Dean can never go to.

Dean paces until Lilith comes in. He doesn’t have even the slightest clue how long it’s been since Alistair took Sam, but Sam is right behind her and he’s carrying Cas. His heart does a weird skitter-stop that almost _hurts_ because Sam looks pissed and he’s glaring at Lilith’s back. But Cas is – Cas is – he’s got one arm around Sam’s shoulders, his head against his jaw and he looks like he can barely keep his eyes open. There are bandages around his wrists and arms, and there’s a slice missing from the ruffled fans along his tail. Cas has got the fucking collar on again and he flinches every time Sam moves too sharply.

Jesus, what did they do to him?

Dean’s chest aches. Jess is on her feet and grabbing his arm before he even gets a chance to go to Cas.  She pulls at Dean’s arm again when he takes a step forward. He ignores Lilith completely. All of his attention is focused on checking Sam over for any injuries too.

“Sammy, Cas, you guys okay?”

Lilith steps between them and pushes her hand against Dean’s chest. As if that would be able to keep him back if he really wanted to get to the others.  “You stay right where you are. Sam, put Castiel in the tank.” She doesn’t take her eyes off him when she moves her hand from his chest and holds it out to Jess. He’s too busy checking Sam and Cas over to care about what she’s looking at. “Give me the key.”

“I… I don’t have the key anymore.” Of course Jess doesn’t. She gave it to him days ago.

Lilith’s hand moves in front of him, palm up. “Hand it over, Winchester.”

Aside from the bandages and how fucking drained Cas looks, neither of them seem that bad off but Dean’s itching to find out what happened. Why is Cas wearing bandages and what the fuck did Lilith and Alistair do to him? And why the hell hasn’t Cas made the kin-connection with him yet?  

His glare drops to Lilith and he almost sneers at her hand. “What for?”

“I’m confining him to the tank. Castiel isn’t allowed to move about outside of it anymore.”

No. Jesus fucking Christ, _no_. She can’t split them up like this – not again. At least she’s not chaining him up inside the tank this time. But he only just got Cas more or less comfortable with anything beyond kissing and she’s going to take that away from them too? He doesn’t even want to think about how she’s locking Cas up in a fucking cage like a goddamn _animal._

Dean tenses, forcing himself not to actually hit her. Something that sounds a hell of a lot like a growl manages to work itself out of his throat before his words do. “No. You can’t do that to him.”

“I can do what I want with him. He belongs to me.” Lilith keeps speaking in that matter of fact tone that’s making his blood fucking _boil_. “Give me the key, Dean.” Her other hand comes up to touch lightly around the ugly ass pendant she’s wearing.

It’s a staring contest Dean plans to win – except Cas makes a soft hissing sound when he shifts in Sam’s arms and his voice is strained and quiet. “Dean –”

Dean looks up and Lilith turns around. Cas looks broken. He looks like he’s sick and tired of all of this and it pops the bubble of Dean’s anger. Defying Lilith isn’t helping their situation right now and Dean knows it but he doesn’t just want to give in and let the bitch lock Cas up away from him again. Cas meets his eyes for a moment before he looks away – that lip-lick not even slightly distracting.

“Dean. Give key. Please.”

It can’t be healthy with how many times his goddamn heart feels like it’s stopped today. Cas drops his cheek back to Sam’s shoulder and he suddenly looks so small and fragile when Dean knows he’s not and that fucking _scares_ him. What did Lilith do to break Cas like this? To make him listen to her like that? To keep him from making the kin-connection when he knows Cas likes being melded with his mind?

Cas repeats his request a few times and Dean can’t stand to hear it anymore. He makes a disgusted noise – sick to his stomach that he doesn’t know what Lilith did and Cas is basically begging him to listen to her. He drops the key into her hand and slumps against the counter. Lilith walks by and Sam follows. Looking at either of them makes that lump in his throat twist and the pain in his chest pulse until it feels like he can’t breathe.

Dean only looks up again at the sound of the bars being locked. Cas is at the bottom of the tank, just laying on his stomach with his chin on his arms. His eyes look unfocused and he winces slightly, shifting his arm so he’s not laying on his wrists. Those fucking bandages – Jesus, what did they do that needs him to be fucking _bandaged_ afterward? He curls his fingers into fists and they tremble over his arms.

He moves without realizing it, planting himself in Lilith’s path before she gets to the door. “What did you do to Cas?”

She narrows her eyes and tries to side-step him. Dean moves to block her again and makes a sharp gesture at the tank and Cas. “What the _fuck_ did you do to him? His arms and his tail – what did you let Alistair _do_?”

“He hurt his arms himself.” Lilith snaps. “If he’d just held still then the clamps wouldn’t have rubbed him raw like that.”

“Clamps? _Clamps_.” Dean’s fingers twitch and he fights the urge to throttle her. “You had him clamped to a fucking table?” He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “And what about the screaming? I could hear him all the way from here, you know. Were you fucking _torturing_ him?”

She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, but Dean doesn’t miss how Sam goes all tense and Jess puts a hand on his arm. “Of course not. I was _training_ him. There’s a difference.”

“What the hell did you do to him?”

“Clean out your ears, idiot. I said that I was training him.” Lilith waves her hand as if that little gesture is going to make him move. “It seems he’s developed the nasty habit of using that link of his to hurt us and I had to make sure that he doesn’t do it again.”

He wants to start into a rant about how Cas isn’t a pet to be trained and he only did that shit because she’s keeping him her like a prisoner, but Dean is seeing red so badly it takes a while to get more than a few grunts out. It’s not even anger that’s making it hard to breathe. He’s fucking _terrified_ over what they could have done. He’s worried out of his mind about how badly she hurt him and he can’t - he can’t handle not knowing. He needs to know _exactly_ what they did.

“He was _screaming_ , Lilith. What the _fuck_ did you do?”

She doesn’t answer, just glares at him while she’s fiddling with that stupid pendant. And suddenly there’s the pressure in his temples. It gives way to the light on the edge of his mind, weak and without that rush of emotions like usual. Only a flare of _reliefneedwantdeanrelief_ before it settles into silence. Just having Cas back in his head is enough for him to calm down and he sinks into the feeling, imagining those ribbons between him and Cas and reaching past them just to feel him.

He can feel Cas relaxing through the kin-connection and Dean can’t help it. He looks, glancing up at Cas and he does seem more calm. About as calm as Dean is starting to feel. Then Cas looks up and his head-fins flare out, eyes wide and that’s fucking _fear_ tripping across his expression and filling the kin-connection with _nopleasesorryno_ before he screams.

Dean’s head fills with the sound and even with the water muffling it, his ears are ringing. Those phantom tingles run across the back of his head and down his back for a split second before Cas is ripped away again. Sam flinches and makes a weird, strangled noise and Dean doesn’t even care that it means Sam had the kin-connection too – but at least now he knows what Dean was talking about before.

Cas is convulsing almost violently, curled in on himself as his fins snap out and his tail fans tremble and he keeps fucking _screaming._ Dean doesn’t know what to do – fuck, he doesn’t even know how it’s even happening. Cas’s voice gives out, but he keeps trying to scream. it’s choked and strained and Dean doesn’t know how is Lilith even doing it but it’s _her fault_.

She makes some weird high-pitched noise when Dean grabs her shoulder, spins her and presses her against the tank. Lilith is clutching that fucking necklace and it clicks in his head like a goddamn light bulb. The damn necklace. She had been holding it earlier when Cas had cut out of his head the first time today and she’s holding it now and there’s no way she’d wear an ugly piece of shit like that without good reason. He grabs her wrist but she keeps holding on to it. Even when he pins it to the tank too.

“Stop it!” Dean shouts it in her face and her eyes go wide. His hands are shaking where they’re holding her down and he’s fucking _terrified_ for Cas. He’s hurting so bad he can’t even hold the kin-connection and what if Lilith’s goddamn ‘training’ kills him? “Drop the remote and fucking _let Cas go_.”

Lilith doesn’t say anything and she doesn’t let go either. Dean draws her forward and slams her back into the glass. He wants to hurt her. She’s killing Cas and Dean can only think of one other time he’s ever been this fucking _scared_ of the thoughts cross his mind – of what he’s capable of. Nobody hurts the people he cares for and she’s just staring at him and _not doing anything_.

He moves one hand to her collarbone, not caring about the twinge in his arm under the cast. He’s angry, he’s scared and Cas is still making choked, cut off screams that twist through his chest like a goddamn knife. He slides his hand up to her throat and a little of the colour drains from Lilith’s face.  Dean leans in close and his voice drops to a level he hasn’t used since he kicked the shit out of Tony Miller for beating up Sammy.

“I said –” He brings her head forward and slams it back into the glass, making her wince. She’d probably cry out if he wasn’t slowly choking her. “Stop. It.”

She doesn’t let go until he starts lifting her off her feet, sliding her up the glass until she’s on her tiptoes. That’s when Sam and Jess speak up but he can’t hear them over the pounding in his ears or over those fucking noises Cas keeps making and all he wants is for it to _stop_.

And it finally does when Lilith drops the necklace. Dean steps back a bit, letting her stand on her own again. But he keeps his hand on her throat just in case she tries doing anything else. He stays well in her personal space, making sure she knows he’s pissed as all hell. “Why did you just hurt Cas?”

She looks up at him, eyes wide and scared and he’s viciously pleased that the bitch knows not to fuck with him now. “He broke my rules.”

“What rules? Why are you stopping him from making the kin-connection with me?”

“Castiel is only allowed to use his link with my permission. He’s not allowed to make it with you.”

His whole body locks up and red flashes on the edges of his vision. “Cas needs the kin-connection! He fucking told you that! Without it, he could lose his goddamn mind!”

“He will have it. With myself or Sam, or whoever else I say he can speak to. He is banned from making it with _you_. He’s unnaturally attached to you and I need to train him out of it.”

Dean doesn’t get a chance to respond. The door swings open and the guards come in. Lilith doubles over the moment they pull him away and it’s like a flashback to this afternoon when they drag him back and Sam and Jess are just fucking _standing there_. He’d be mad at them for not doing anything if he didn’t think they were geniuses for it. If they do anything, Cas might end up alone – because he has no illusions that he’s not going to get ‘punished’ for what he just did.

 “Get him out of here!” Lilith makes a sharp gesture with her hand and he’s never seen her look so mad.

But the order still makes him lock up again. If she’s sending him out of the room now, chances are he’s not going to be coming back anytime soon. That thought makes his chest go tight and that pain-that-isn’t-pain twists behind his ribs. Dean might not get to see Cas after this. Not until they find some way to get them all out of here.

Dean starts kicking and punching and squirming because fuck all if he’s not going to put up one hell of a fight if they’re going to take him away from Cas. The only thing that makes him stop is a goddamn gun to his side. Judging by the look on Sam’s face, it’s one of the ones that means he won’t be waking up later. He shoots a look at Sam that he hopes comes across as ‘look after Cas and don’t do anything stupid’ before the guards drag him out of the room.

And Lilith better hope that Cas is okay or Dean’s going to tear this ship apart to make her _pay_.


	22. Sick and Sweaters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 18.**

The moment Sam texted him and said Cas was sick, Dean knew being grounded was going to suck way worse than it already was. He’s got guards outside his door and they even escort him to the bathroom on _their_ clock, whether he has to go or not. At least they bring him food too, but he can barely stomach that knowing Cas is barely lucid, burning up with fever, and not holding anything down. And of fucking course Lilith isn’t letting Dean go help him, or even just _be there_ for Cas. She better hope to hell that Cas gets better. It’s her fucking shock collar that did this to him in the first place.

There’s only so many different shapes Dean can make in the imperfections in the ceiling before he goes out of his mind with cabin fever. He doesn’t even have a bouncy ball to throw against the opposite wall, or a dirty magazine to jerk off to. Granted, he’s got his imagination and that’s been plenty vivid enough in the last few weeks before he and Cas started – started – started whatever it is that they’ve got going on. But with Cas sick outta his head right now, Dean’s took worried to really get it up while thinking of him and imagining anyone else just feels wrong.

Hell, they didn’t even have the courtesy of giving him a book. All he’s got is his phone and he’s pretty sure Sam is going to punch him in the face the next time he sees him for how many times he’s asked for updates on Cas’s situation, telling him to call whenever Cas wakes up conscious enough to make sense when he talks. That said, Dean nearly pounces on his phone when it lets out a text tone well after midnight on what might be the third day, might be the fourth, maybe even the second. He kind of stopped paying attention after the first.

                _He’s awake and coherent._

Dean damn near dances, hitting the call button without hesitation. He won’t be able to really talk _with_ Cas without the kin-connection, but at least he can talk _to_ him. It’s not much, but he has to hear Cas for himself and some small part of him hopes that it’ll help Cas in some way to hear him too.

“Hey.” Sam answers on the first ring. “You’re really predictable, y’know that?”

“And you’re really kind of a bitch. Put the phone on speaker and give it to Cas.”

“His head hurts too much for the link, so I can’t translate. Use small words.” He explains and then there’s a beep on the line. “Go ahead.”

“Cas?”

There’s a rustle of noise and then Cas’s voice comes through. It’s a little different, strained like a sick person usually sounds and tinny from the microphone. “Dean!”

All he says is his name and the rush of relief it causes feels so good that Dean collapses back onto his bed with probably the stupidest smile he’s had in days. “Hey, buddy. How you feeling?”

“Bad. Head hurt.” Yeah, he can hear the pain in his voice and it steals his smile.

“He’s still feverish, but he just ate some crackers.” Sam explains and Dean chews on his bottom lip, staring at the ceiling and really wishing he was back with Cas. “He hasn’t thrown up since he woke up earlier.”

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Keep me posted, okay? And Cas, you sleep. Get better.”

“Okay. Dean sleep?”

And there’s the smile again. Cas is sick and he’s worrying about _him_. “Doubt it. But I’ll try. You need lots of rest. Sleep now.”

“Cold.”

Dean sits up, legs crossing automatically. “Sam, tuck him in. Get him another blanket if he needs it. Throw one of my sweaters over him or something. Keep him warm.”

“I know how to take care of someone sick, Dean. Jesus.” He can hear the smile around the tone and Dean rolls his eyes. “How many times did I have to take care of your ass when you came down with a cold? You’re the biggest baby ever when you’ve got the sniffles.”

“Fuck you, no I’m not.” He’s a manly man when he’s sick, dammit. “And who knows how fever affects Cas. Did Pam give him anything?” None of his near-hourly reports said anything about medication, but he has to ask anyways.

“No, she doesn’t want to take the risk. We’re dealing with it the same way we would handle it for anyone else. His body temp when we brought him in is way lower than ours and it was up a lot when we pulled him out of the tank last night. The problem is, we don’t know what temperature is considered dangerous for him and what’s not.”

Fuck. “Well, what’s his temp now?”

“I… don’t know. Hold on, I’ve got to get the thermometer.” There’s a rustling noise and the sound of footsteps fading away. He must have left the phone with Cas.

After a little more rustling sounds, like blankets being moved around, Cas’s voice cuts through the static. It’s small and whispered and it makes something in Dean’s chest twinge almost painfully. “Dean back when? Please back.”

Fuck, what he wouldn’t give to be there right now. “I don’t know, Cas. Soon, I hope. Just sleep, okay?”

There’s a rumble of a hum. “Dean okay?”

Cas has gotta know that anything more than a one word answer is going to be lost on him. Maybe he’s after more than just that though? Does he want Dean to talk? Because he can do that. He could talk until the cows come home if it’ll help Cas in anyway. And that’s just what he does, ending up comparing old memories with Sam while Cas just listens until Sam takes the phone off the speaker setting.

“Yeah, he’s kinda sleeping again. His temperature is almost back to normal, so hopefully he’ll be fine by morning. I’m going to leave more crackers for him in case he wakes up again during the night.”

“Thanks, Sammy. For taking care of him.”

“It’s the least I could do.” Sam’s voice goes into the pitch where Dean knows he’s pulling an ‘I fucked up’ face. He’s probably feeling like shit since Cas is only here because of him. “I’ll text you again in the morning, okay?”

Dean flops back on his bed again. “Yeah, sounds like a plan. And don’t beat yourself up about it. As much as it sucks that Lilith has her hooks in him, if it wasn’t for you I never would’ve met him and that’s nothing to regret.”

“I don’t know what’s worse –” Sam laughs. “Subjected him to Lilith, or to _you_.”

“Shut your face, I’m awesome.”

“You keep believing that. And get some sleep too, okay? You’re not going to do any of us any good if you come out of that room loopy on lack of sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll talk to you later. Night, Sam.” He hangs up without waiting for the rest of the pleasantries he doesn’t have the patience for right now.

It’d be nice to talk to Sam a little longer, but he knows when Sam is tired and he’s  probably only keeping himself awake right now for Cas’s benefit. Now that Cas is asleep again, there’s no point in Sam staying awake too. That leaves Dean to toss and turn until he manages something a little like sleep. At least he feels slightly rested when Lilith shows up at his door at the ass crack of dawn.

She shoves a plastic bag with a change of clothes in it into his hands. “Go take a shower and change. You’re free to return to Castiel’s room when you’re done.”

He looks down at the clothes. “Uh, thanks. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but how come you’re letting me go back?”

“You’re not allowed to make the kin-connection with Castiel again. Break this rule and you will _both_ regret it.” It’s the only answer she gives, paired with a withering look. Then she’s gone and so are the guards.

He’s too happy about getting to go back to care about the rules right now. Chances are he’ll find a way around them anyways. He always does. Dean texts Sam to meet him at the showers with all his showering things. A quick shower and brush up later and Dean is practically sprinting up to the science floor and their room. It takes zero point two seconds of being in the room before he notices that Cas is fast asleep in _his_ sweater.

Cas has the sweater pulled up over his nose and his hands are tucked under the pillow, his tail curved out from under the blanket and hanging over the edge of the bed. Dean barely acknowledges that Sam, Jess and Pam are there. All they get is a wave as he tosses his bag of dirty clothes to one side and digs out his cell phone. He needs pictures of this. Dear sweet ever-loving pie, this is something he wants to see every damn day and if anyone wakes Cas up before he gets one, he might just kill them. All it takes is one venomous glare before everyone else backs up away from the bed.

He gets a good few shots before he starts running his hand through Cas’s hair. A few sweeps of his fingers and Cas starts making little hmm’ing noises. When his nose crinkles under the edge of the sweater, Dean switches the phone to video mode and brushes his thumb across Cas’s forehead. He’s got to be awake by now.

Dean knows for sure when Cas starts purring and he huffs a small laugh. “Hey, Cas?”

The purring stutters to a stop and Cas goes still. Dean laughs again. “You gonna keep pretending to be asleep?”

Cas’s eyes open slowly and he blinks a few times, eyes unfocused. The sweater was always big on Dean and it’s no different for Cas. He rubs his eyes and blinks at him some more. “Dean?”

“Bingo.” He grins. “How you feeling?”

“Dean!” Cas sits up quick enough for the sweater to jerk down off his face and he’s smiling – wide and bright and he actually looks _happy_. He did that. Just him being back, even if they don’t have the kin-connection at the moment, is enough to make Cas happy enough to smile.

And that’s enough to make _him_ smile.


	23. Worship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 19.**

Dean fucking hates not being able to talk to Cas properly right now, but maybe that’s a little bit of a good thing. Without the kin-connection, Cas doesn’t understand him. There are a few words, small ones that Cas can recognize, but he wouldn’t get the whole message. And that gives him the perfect excuse to say all the things he wants to say but doesn’t.

He smiles against the side of Cas’s neck when he tilts his face into the hand Dean has against his cheek. “You’re gorgeous, y’know that? I thought it from the first moment I saw you, but I never thought I’d get to have you like this.” Falling for a _fin-kin_ of all things was probably the very last thing anyone on this boat expected him to do.

Cas hums, tilting his head back as Dean runs his fingers down his throat. Reality comes crashing back the moment he touches that stupid collar – _Lilith’s_ collar, her stamp of ownership to remind Dean just who Cas really belongs to. It reminds him about her new stupid rule that he’s not allowed to have the kin-connection with Cas and Dean has to bite the inside of his cheek and force his hands to drop to Cas’s chest. He needs a distraction before he lets that bubbling mess of anger take over the really good vibe that he’s got going right now.

Given their current situation, things can’t get much better than being half naked in bed with Cas. Dean knows Cas wanted him to strip down to his boxers, but he doesn’t exactly know _why_. With Cas, there could be any number of reasons and without the kin-connection he might never know. There’s always the possibility that Cas will show him with hands and body why he wanted him de-pants’d, but Cas has always pulled away from anything more than kisses – so Dean’s kinda flying blind here. He might as well get everything off his chest now.

“The first time you made your mind-meld link with me, I was scared shitless. And now I actually fuckin’ miss it. I want you in my head again. I want to know how okay you are with what I’m doing.” He keeps touching, tracing the contours of Cas’s chest and stomach, fighting not to grin when Cas’s arches to press into his fingers. “It’s weird that it’s been, like, two weeks and I’m already really gonna hate when we have to say goodbye.”

It’s unexpectedly hard to say the next bit, even if he knows Cas won’t understand him and there’s no one else around to hear it. Dean whispers it anyway. “I don’t want to.”

He shouldn’t get any deeper than this. He should stop before it gets too hard to leave. But how’s he supposed to do that when Cas turns around and he looks so concerned. Cas sits back and pulls at his crossed legs while pointing at the middle of the bed. “Move. Dean, move please.”

Oh? This is taking an interesting turn and maybe it’ll be the distraction Dean needs so he won’t think about the depressing shit storm he knows is coming their way. Cas tilts his head and his head-fins flick out for a moment, looking him over before he shakes his head.

“Please.” He leans over and pushes at Dean’s shoulder.

Yup, _definitely_ getting interesting. Dean grins and raises his eyebrows at Cas before laying back and tucking his hands behind his head. “If you wanted me on my back, Cas, you should’ve just said so.” He stretches out, well aware that Cas is staring and enjoying every moment of it – especially the point where Cas actually licks his lips and looks him over again.

“Hm?” Dean props himself up on his elbows when Cas slides down the bed to sit between his feet and puts one in his lap. Why is he starting down there when Dean’s mouth is all the way up here? Cas starts with his toes, dragging his finger down the bottom of his foot and sweet holy crap – it’s been so long since someone else touched his feet that he’s forgotten how ticklish they are.

“Dude, don’t. That tickles.”

The way that Cas looks at him makes Dean think that he knows exactly what he said without the kin-connection – the little smirk and the way the ruffled fans on his tail flutter just confirms it. Cas holds his ankle tight enough that even a sharp tug doesn’t get him to let go. They are _so_ going to need one hell of a talk after this when Cas keeps tickling him until Dean can barely breathe and he doesn’t stop until Dean damn near starts kicking him in the shoulder.

“With great power comes great responsibility. Use your knowledge wisely, Cas, coz’ the moment I find your ticklish spots I’m going to make you pay for that.” He nudges him with his foot while Cas grins at him, his fins shuffling like he’s ridiculously pleased with himself for making Dean laugh – which, yeah, okay, that felt really fucking good. “God, I haven’t laughed like that in ages.”

If he had any hope that was gonna make Cas stop, it was pointless. There’s no more tickling, but he gets all reverent and shit while wiggling his feet and feeling his calves up. Which is fine – but then he leans down and actually puts his mouth on his feet.

It’s not quite ticklish and it – it doesn’t exactly feel _weird_ in a bad way – more like weird in a holy-shit-that-feels-kind-of-good way. Cas doesn’t stop there, kissing, licking and nipping his way up to Dean’s knee before moving on to his other leg and starting the whole thing over again.

Dean folds his arms over his face to keep from looking. Watching Cas do it distracts from the weird-good feeling and he’d rather focus on that than anything else right now. There’s a fire burning in his belly and even if he doesn’t get to take care of it here with Cas and has to take a trip to the bathroom or something, it’ll still be good. He can just think about Cas putting his mouth on much more interesting places.

Cas stops at his knee again and he sounds worried. “Dean?”

“It’s okay, Cas. That was just…” He looks down at him from under his arms and tries for a smile. “No one’s ever done that before. It was weird, but a good weird. It’s okay, really.”

“Okay.” He sighs and Dean thinks it might be one of relief.

And then he drops his head again and he’s definitely heading north with the kisses and baby back home forgive him for this but there’s no way he can let Cas keep going when there’s every possibility that he has no idea what kind of territory he’s heading into. Dean would love nothing more than to sit back and let Cas keep exploring, but it just doesn’t feel right letting him go places he hasn’t gone before without them having some kind of _talk_ about it.

Without the kin-connection that’s going to be one hell of a difficult thing to do.


	24. Warmth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 20.**

_(Are you going to put me in small-sea?)_ The way Cas looks at the tank, and the crazy mix of hate and longing that fills the kin-connection, makes Dean’s heart sink.

 _(Only if you want me to. It’s not like Lilith told us to put you back the moment you were better or anything.)_ He rubs Cas’s tail where it’s wrapped around his waist, looking between him and the tank.

The way Dean feels about the tank is probably the same as Cas does. He hates having to put Cas in a cage, but it’s the only source of water they’ve got and the water is where Cas belongs. It’s where he’s lived his whole damn life and Dean can’t help hating himself a little bit more every time Cas is out of the tank when Dean _knows_ that he wants to swim. Fuck, Cas is always pining for the sea whether he knows he’s doing it or not and it kills Dean that he can’t give him that. Hell, sometimes he catches himself being selfish and thinking that he doesn’t _want_ to give Cas that. Because if he does, what’s to stop Cas from swimming away? What’s to stop him from leaving Dean like everyone else has?

Dean can feel Cas about to object – probably to say that he doesn’t need to go in the tank, even though his ache to be swimming is practically tangible inside Dean’s own freaking head. He glances between Cas and the tank again, cutting him off at the pass. _(And don’t think you can lie to me. I know you’re just itching to get back to swimming again. It’s in your blood, Cas.)_

Confusion curls around Cas’s thoughts and he looks at Dean with that little frown that never fails to make something inside of Dean twist and go ‘aww’ at the same time. _(That’s another figure of speech, isn’t it?)_

He grins and pats Cas’s tail. _(Sure is.)_

For a couple seconds Cas deliberates before he concedes. He uncurls from around him and Dean quickly tells himself that he doesn’t immediately miss the heavy weight of Cas’s tail around his waist or over his lap. Cas stretches out across the bed, leaning on Jess. She smiles brightly at him before she stands, making room for Dean to pick Cas up.

Dean carries him with his right arm under the bend of his tail – the part that he tries not to think of as his ‘ass’ because Cas doesn’t really have one of those – and his left arm around his back to keep him steady. Cas’s arms find their way around his neck and Dean can feel him strain to lift himself up more by his shoulders.

Something weirdly _pleased_ curls in Dean’s stomach and he fights not to smile just because Cas is being adorable and trying not to strain his broken arm. _(You don’t have to do that, y’know. It doesn’t even hurt that bad. It just aches some times.)_

Cas brushes his thoughts aside but he doesn’t shift his weight back down. Jess follows them around the tank and she keeps him steady when Dean steps up onto the platform. It’s not too hard to get Cas over the edge of the wall when Cas is pulling himself up too. He sinks for a bit before he starts floating on his back, those ruffled fans along his tail rolling gently. Dean waves at him as he jumps down from the platform and Cas waves back.

He really, truly, honestly hates with a passion that he has to keep Cas out of the loop like this as they let the kin-connection goes quiet between them and Dean joins Sam and Jess. Cas knows _why_ he has to do it, but he doesn’t really know just how bad it bothers Dean to hide their plans from him.

Of course Dean keeps all his angry thoughts like that hidden in his head behind those walls of his that he’s forever grateful he figured out how to make. There’s so much shit he thinks behind them that Cas doesn’t need to hear – things that would just weigh on Cas more than all the crap he’s already got on his shoulders.

Cas needs to go home no matter how much Dean wishes he could keep Cas. It’s fucking ridiculous, this stupid pain in his chest whenever he thinks about it. Jesus, it’s been what? Two weeks? How fucking pathetic can he possibly get? It probably didn’t help much having Cas in his head and everything feels too quiet, too _dark_ when he isn’t there. It’s almost funny. That his own damn head can feel _wrong_ without Cas there.

That’s a major part of the reason he doesn’t just cut the connection completely while Sam shows him these mystery text messages he’s getting. Seems someone somewhere is looking out for them and wants to help in some way. Which is awesome, yeah, but Dean can’t help thinking _why._ Nobody has tried to help them before. Why now? Who is it? Why aren’t they telling them who they are?

Dean tries to keep his attention on Sam’s phone whenever a new text message pops up and the discussion about their escape plan. But Cas is really fucking distracting. And all he’s doing is swimming in circles before taking up a spot in the middle of the tank.

Sam’s phone dings up again and he reads it out. It’s news about Lilith having some meeting with Alistair which can’t mean anything even remotely good. They fall back into discussing ways to escape, but another message interrupts another of Jess’s suggestions – one that Dean already has at least three reasons for why it wouldn’t work, and that’s just the fucking case, isn’t it? No matter what anyone suggests, someone else shoots it down because Lilith just has more resources and a million less weak points than they do.

The more they talk the less likely it seems like they’re going to _all_ be able to get out of this. Dean doesn’t want to lose any of his friends or family anymore than he wants to abandon Cas to Lilith’s complete lack of mercy. And there’s no way in Hell or Creation that he’s going to stop trying to help Cas. If it’s the last thing he’s going to do, it’ll be getting Cas his freedom. He won’t let Sam or Jess, Bobby or Pam die, but he’ll throw away his own life for this – and he doesn’t care how big a fucking hypocrite that makes him.

That pulsing alien light on the edge of his mind presses closer, flaring brightly against the walls around his thoughts. He can feel the curiosity rubbing against them, but it’s the soothing comfort that’s more surprising than anything. Goddamn does it feel good. Of course Cas wants to know what they’re talking about, but he can tell the conversation is getting Dean riled up and he’s trying to placate him and that’s just fucking _awesome_.

It eases all those angry thoughts and Dean relaxes right about the same time that Cas starts getting beyond distracting - being all flexible and bending himself into what should be impossible shapes if he wasn’t so freaking snake-like. Dean really has to fight to keep from looking at him then. It wouldn’t do him any good to pop a boner next to his little brother. Not that it wouldn’t be the first – motel upbringing and all – but Sam did lay down the law a long time ago and Dean’s been trying to keep to them as best he can over the years.

Dean lets out a few thoughts, just some appreciation for what Cas is doing. Not the stretches – though he definitely likes those and he’d appreciate them more if he and Cas were alone, together, and preferably naked – but more for the effort he’s making to be a comfort. He leaves that little space open in the walls and more than once Dean finds himself reaching along those trembling ribbons that keep him and Cas connected just to sink into that reassuring calm again.

It’s frustrating as fuck that Sam keeps shooting down all his plans, or Jess will have a reason something won’t work. Hell, even he’s flushing more than half of their suggestions too. The best they’ve got so far is getting on a lifeboat and making a damn break for it. What keeps tripping them up is _how_ are they going to get one?

Sometimes wisps of Cas’s thoughts curl over the walls. Dean tries not to pay too much attention to those. He’s pretty good at multitasking, in his own fine opinion, but even he can’t listen to Cas’s thoughts at the same time as trying to pay attention to Jess and Sam.

Far as he can tell, Cas is thinking about his family and his home. That’s almost as distracting as the stretching – thankfully that doesn’t last much longer and Cas winds up just laying on his back in the middle of the tank, staring at the ceiling. The longing, the sadness, it’s digging against the walls around Dean’s head whether Cas means for it to or not and it’s making something hard – something _painful_ – twist tight in Dean’s chest.

Jess is saying something about Bobby and another bomb when something Cas thinks snaps up Dean’s attention like a fifty-percent off pie discount sign. He almost doesn’t understand it at first, but the meaning sets in and it damn near makes Dean’s heart fucking _stop_. It surprises him so bad that it _scares_ him. He looks up sharply and stares at Cas, and he keeps staring long after Cas turns his head to look back at him steadily.

 _(Don’t think like that, Cas.)_ Dean damn near begs. He hates the idea of Cas thinking about death over this – over being Lilith’s pet. If they can’t get him free, he’d understand wanting that. But there’s still so much hope and it’s fucking terrifying that Cas is thinking anything like that. Dean lets the walls drop more, lets Cas feel just how much that worries him.

Cas doesn’t move. He just keeps regarding Dean with that see-through-you stare that never fails to send shivers down his spine. The kin-connection is filled with Dean’s emotions – but Cas is being introspective or something and Dean feels a little ridiculous letting so much of himself show when he doesn’t often share this much – let alone when Cas is suddenly so quiet with his own feelings.

And then suddenly Cas is sharing again. It’s something that burns through the kin-connection hotter than the heat of the arousal that had passed between them this morning when Dean had _finally_ gotten to touch Cas. It’s searing, yeah, but more in the way that makes you feel like you’re glowing instead of being on fire. Cas keeps shoving that warm feeling into his head and Jesus fucking _Christ_ it burrows a new home straight down into Dean’s chest as if that’s where it always belonged and it’s a whole new level of frightening. It shocks Dean’s brain blank like a lightning bolt to the head.

He can feel a blush crawling over his face and ears because Cas feels – holy crap, he feels _that_ for him. For _Dean_. Jesus shit. Dean can’t even fucking _name_ it, it’s so goddamn mind blowing. He knows what it is, but it’s just – shit, wow. Cas sits up and confusion starts curling along the ribbons. He has to look away before he does something stupid like throwing himself into the tank, grabbing Cas and never letting him go. Which is fucking _stupid_ because he’s not allowed to do that. He can’t, he _shouldn’t_.  But _fuck_ does it feel good to know that Cas feels this.

Dean drops his eyes to Sam’s phone again, trying to feign like Cas and his _feeling_ hasn’t completely thrown him for a freaking loop. He can see out of the corner of his eye that Cas is moving in the tank as he keeps poking and prodding at Dean’s mind.

And no, Dean did not just shyly glance up to see if Cas was still looking at him. Dean doesn’t do _shy_. He’s just… biding his time right now. Trying to figure out how he’s supposed to – what is he even supposed to say? Cas just basically _confessed_ to feeling – to feeling _that_ for him and Dean hasn’t said _that_ to anyone since – well, since Cassie.

Yes, he can see the irony in the names there.

Sweet jumping jellybeans, Cas is looking at him with all his ridiculously blue, wide-eyed concern. And there’s frustration starting to leak through with the confusion and the warmth now. Dean knows he’s being really unfair and the longer he doesn’t say anything, the worse Cas is probably going to feel – even if he looks like he doesn’t even realize what he just did.

There’s a box in Dean’s chest where he’s locked up everything _good_ that he feels about – for - Cas. Everything that manages to scare the shit out of him and make pain twist in his chest while simultaneously being the best feeling in the whole fucking world. Feeling that again, after Cassie, makes a of lump rise in his throat, threatening to choke off his air supply and leave him struggling to breathe.

The level of stupid for feeling _that_ for Casis just – it’s incalculable. Not because Cas isn’t human, not because Cas is, well, _Cas_. No, fuck, no. It’s stupid as fuck because he _can’t_ _keep_ _him_.

He should tell Cas _something_. He really should. Dean should let him down, slowly. It’ll probably ruin everything they have now, but he can’t let Cas get any deeper than he already is. It’s a shitty time for the both of them and he just – why the fuck can’t he just _say something_? Cas deserves so much better than _him_ , than this whole stupid situation.

But he can’t do it. He can’t bring himself to say anything, do anything other than let that little box crack open just enough for – for something that feels a lot like what Cas is shoving into the kin-connection to slip through. It worms its way through the cracks in the walls around his mind, leaking straight out to where Cas can feel it.

And Cas fucking _seizes_ it. He drags it out into the open and starts examining it like it’s the single most interesting thing in the entire fucking universe. Dean damn near has a panic attack and he tries to take it back, tries to hide it and not have to deal with this when he’s supposed to be listening to Sam and Jess.

Cas lets it go suddenly and there’s surprise washing against the walls around Dean’s mind before the kin-connection gets flooded with all of Cas’s _feelings_. It makes Dean’s brain do summersaults. He ducks his head, pretending to be squinting at Sam’s phone while trying to hide the stupid fucking blush that’s nearly burning the freckles right off his cheeks.

The kin-connection starts doing a silly twinge-ing thing. It’s Cas tugging at it to get his attention and it’s kind of adorable. _(Dean.)_

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have the first frikken clue what to say or what to do. This had been miles, hell, this had been _light-years_ different with Cassie. Dean hadn’t been this nervous, this scared, this _anything_ back then. Compared to Cas, Cassie had been simple – though he remembers freaking out a little then too. But, Christ, it wasn’t anything like this.

Cas keeps being all insistent in the kin-connection, tugging and flicking and being a downright incessant bother with trying to get Dean to pay attention to him. All Dean does is tilt his head, just a little. Enough to let Cas know that he’s listening.

_(I want to kiss you. Right now.)_

And damn if that doesn’t make Dean want to smile. He catches the grin before it can make its way full onto his face because as awesome as it is that Cas wants to kiss him, that Cas feels that way for him – this _really_ is not the time. They both more or less confessed that they feel more than just friendship and a physical attraction to each other. But they did it right in front of Dean’s little brother and his fiancée and they can’t really do anything with them here. Even if Cas is filling the kin-connection with _joydeanwantneeddeankiss_ like a frikken mantra.

Dean shakes his head, a subtle little ‘no’. Cas will just have to wait for later, for a time when Dean can focus entirely on him. And if Cas is lucky, Dean won’t shit his pants and run the fuck away because all of this is basically one giant chick-flick moment and it’s all sorts of uncomfortable. Mostly because he still can’t believe Cas would feel something like that for him. There are so many reasons Cas shouldn’t be feeling it. Dean can’t even begin to catalogue them all.  

Cas growls and swims away from the wall, starting into tight loops. He hesitates every time he passes under the raised bars and if Cas so much as tries to climb out on his own, Dean is going to have some _serious_ words with him. It had taken days for the bruises on Cas’s shoulders to go away the first time he’d fallen to the platform. Sam had told him it had made a hell of a bang and that everyone was surprised that Cas didn’t dislocate a shoulder or break an arm.

Frustration, indecision, everything is playing through Cas’s head faster than Dean can keep up. Not that he’s really trying to. He’s trying to keep his attention on the message Sam is typing out to their mystery texter at a speed Dean thinks is bordering on inhuman. Honestly, Dean hasn’t heard a single word about what the latest text is about and Jess is going on about food supplies so he’s not sure how much he actually missed being distracted by that warmth Cas won’t stop pulsing into his head.

Something bright, like a goddamn epiphany, flashes through the kin-connection and Dean looks up once – a quick up-down of his eyes – to check on Cas. He’s stopped his to and fro across the tank and plunked himself down at the front wall again with his tail curled under him and a determined set to his shoulders.

Cas starts pulling at the kin-connection again. This time he’s more insistent then he was before and all he’s chanting in his head is _lookuplookuplookup_. The moment Dean looks up and finds those haunting baby blues locked on his own, Cas starts singing and Dean stops breathing, stops thinking, stops everything as those familiar notes fill the tank and muffle their way out through the glass.

It’s _that_ song. The one Dean catches himself humming when he’s alone – taking a piss or in the shower or walking in the halls. It’s lingering notes still sound off without the harmony it would get with the duet it’s meant to be, but Dean doesn’t care. He’s never heard what it’s supposed to sound like and Cas is amazing all on his own.

Cas is watching him steadily and Dean can’t bring himself to look away, to tell him to stop because that’s a goddamn love song that Cas is singing and he’s singing it _to him_. Again. For the third time. And even though Cas isn’t translating the words – not that he ever has before, the kin-connection is full of that pulsating warmth and the song just makes so much more sense to him now.

When the last note fades, trembling on a note Dean isn’t even sure a human throat can properly produce, he still can’t do anything. He manages to swallow, his mouth suddenly ridiculously dry. He’s got a white knuckled grip on the back of Sam’s chair and Dean wants to move, he wants to sprint to the platform, haul Cas out and – and – and he doesn’t know what. But he wants to do it.

He remembers to start breathing around the same time Sam and Jess give him a good, hard shove. Dean stumbles, damn near face planting before he gets his feet under him again. It’s the push he needed and he doesn’t stop his forward momentum. Hell, he doesn’t even look back to see what faces they’ve got on. They know what the song means too and Dean’s not sure what expression he’s got on but he can’t really care because everything in his head is a thundering _cascascascascas._

Cas is waiting for him at the wall, coughing up water and rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth to wipe it all way. Dean doesn’t know what they’re going to do. At this point, Cas and his fucking song and that heartbeat of warmth have wiped his head clean of everything else.

He reaches over the wall and drags Cas forward. Dean’s hands are shaking and he hides it by holding Cas tight – one hand on the back of his neck, the other gripping his arm. The stupid wall is between them and Dean hates it with the passion of a thousand burning suns because he wants Cas pressed against him. He wants the heavy weight of his tail curled and tangled with his legs and Cas’s cool arms around his shoulders and he just _wants_.

His hands are damp and cool on Dean’s jaw when Cas cups his face. He presses a few soft kisses to his mouth and it’s driving Dean crazy, these gentle little touches. That stupid song ripped the lid off the box in his chest and fireworks are going off behind his ribs, lighting up his insides and he needs to get it all out but Cas is moving slow, gentle, _tender_.

“This is insane.” Dean mumbles against Cas’s lips, tilting his head and hoping that Cas gets the clue, that Cas will give him more. “This is fucking _insane_.”

Because it is. Jesus motherfucking Christ, there is nothing more crazy than what they’re feeling for each other right now. He’s human, Cas isn’t. They’re not the same goddamn species, they don’t even live in the same freaking habitats. All of this is a lunacy so profound that someone should be stopping them – he should be stopping it because this is going to fucking _hurt –_ and Dean is the dumbass of the century for letting it happen.

The worst thing is – he wouldn’t change a thing if he could. He’s scared shitless about how badly this is going to fuck him over in the end, how badly it’s going to _break him_ when he loses Cas. But the kin-connection is bright and alive and damn nearly sparkling like a fucking rainbow with  how happy Cas is. And it’s like ambrosia. It’s getting him drunk and high and it’s the best goddamn feeling in the world.

Dean pulls back. Just enough to rest his forehead on Cas’s because he can’t fucking breathe. He tries to take as many shaky breaths as he can manage. Cas is all kinds of steady. He’s tripping happiness through the kin-connection and it makes Dean want to smile, but his stomach keeps twisting and he feels like he’s going to be sick.

He makes an attempt at lightening the situation, but even in his head his amusement sounds weak. _(We’re crazy. You know that right?)_

Cas just smiles with his eyes and his lips and he laughs, a pleased little chuckle that makes Dean’s ribs tingle. He tries to smile back, but it probably looks like he’s got gas or something who the fuck even knows. And Cas doesn’t seem to care, kissing him firmly and nailing another peg into the coffin Dean’s going to bury himself in when all of _this_ comes to its disastrous, world shattering end.

Dean’s only given himself up like this once before, and it had hurt. He’d had a few years in jail to come to terms with it and he’d sworn the day that he got out that he would never put himself through that again. Barely six months out of prison and here he is, skidding headfirst into something he _knows_ can’t end in anything but pain.

All of that is raging behind the walls in his head and he’s trying to make it all go away with lame jokes that Cas still smiles at, not because he doesn’t know any better but because he’s honestly just _happy_. He’s in a goddamn cage, trapped on a boat who knows how many miles from everything he’s ever known and he’s happy because of _Dean_. That’s almost too much for him to even comprehend and it’s just as terrifying as everything else.

Cas shifts just a bit and for a second Dean thinks he’s going to pull away entirely. He tightens his hold and draws him as close to the wall as Cas can get. He kisses him firmly with an edge of desperation he wishes would go away.

He cups his face again and the kin-connection softens, washed through with that swirling, buzzing, fucking _insane_ heat that doesn’t seem to have an end. It eases his thoughts but it sends his heart into triple time. Dean closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to get a hold of himself. Cas nudges his forehead with his own and Dean can feel his salt-sea breath on his lips.

God, how is he supposed to tell Cas how fucking _scared_ he is?

 _(I don’t know if I can do this, Cas.)_ Dean doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t want to see the disappointment that is, surprisingly, lacking in the kin-connection. He sends a little wave of the not-going-to-name-it over the walls around his mind to cement his next words. _(I want to, fuck yes, I do. But I – There’s so much shit in my head that I hide from you. I can be just as bad as Lilith and I – I don’t know if I can be what you want me to be.)_

Cas makes a little ‘shh’ sound and one of his thumbs starts rubbing over Dean’s cheek in soothing little strokes. _(I’m not asking anything beyond what you’re willing to give, Dean. What you’ve shared with me today is more than I thought I would ever get and I am happy.)_

Understatement of the year, Cas. Dean can barely think for all the _joywarmthdeanhappy_ filling his head through the kin-connection.

He takes forever to say anything else. Hell, he doesn’t _know_ what to say. There’s a shit ton that he _wants_ to say. And even more that he knows he _shouldn’t_ say. Cas is waiting, quiet and calm and his fingers are cool and gentle against his cheek and it’s the most loving touch Dean’s received in _years_. It makes his chest twist painfully because there’s a fucking time limit on this.

 _(You’re still going to leave.)_ Even in his head that sounds like a whining child and Dean hates it.

Cas wraps Dean’s thoughts in that pulsating heat, soothing and calming all at once. He’s mirroring the touch with his hands, sliding them gently over Dean’s ears, down his neck and back up into his hair. _(Only because I have to. This isn’t my world and I can’t stay here.)_

Something in Dean wrenches, spiraling tighter and he knows it’s going to break and he’s going to shatter because no matter what hard shell he pretends to have, he’s made of fucking _glass_ and Cas is going to break him. Cas is going to smash him into a million pieces and Dean should step away. He shouldn’t let Cas press another soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. He shouldn’t hold him tighter, pressing closer to the stupid wall of glass between them and wishing that it was Cas’s body instead.

Then Cas says those little words that damn near eradicate the walls around Dean’s head.

_(It won’t be because of you and it’s not right now.)_

Dean makes a noise – something small, something broken – and he kisses Cas. It’s probably bruising and not very enjoyable, but it’s all he has right now because Cas said exactly what he needed to hear. Cas isn’t leaving because of something Dean fucked up. He’s not leaving because it’s Dean’s fault. He’s leaving because he has to, because that’s just how things have to go with their fucking shitty situation.

He doesn’t try to make sense of his thoughts. He’s too desperate to feel all of Cas now, to have him in all the ways he can while they still have time. But even those frantic kisses die down to gentle touches because Cas is radiating that warmth and it’s the best sedative ever. Cas is glowing with it in a way Dean’s never seen before and probably something so _new_ to him. And Dean did that. He’s the cause of it and that’s just fucking _awesome_.      

At some point Dean ends up with his face pressed against Cas’s neck. He can feel the scales lining Cas’s gills pressed against his cheek. It’s not very comfortable, but he’ll be damned if he’s letting Cas go when he’s doing the mental equivalent of wrapping around him. Dean is still scared of sharing more, of showing Cas just how much of that warm heat came out of the broken box in Dean’s chest. But Cas doesn’t seem to care. He’s still holding on and he’s not letting go.

Heaven help him, Dean isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to.


	25. Hopeless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 22.**

Dean can’t remember ever being so angry.

The whole dinner he could barely keep himself from trembling, from flipping the damn table and raising hell for everything. For the hair washing, the dress up, the way Lilith treated Cas like an _accessory_ rather than the person he really is. For how Cas spent the entire meal sitting straight with his dorsal fans flat and looking around like he didn’t have frikken clue what was going on.

Dean had been too upset, too disgusted with everything to be able to choke down more than a few bites of food. Cas didn’t know what was going on, he didn’t know what Lilith was telling them and he kept eating like nothing was happening. And that was just it – he really didn’t know. Lilith didn’t translate a fucking thing for him.

How she expected Dean to explain to Cas what was going to happen in a week – fuck, he only has a _week_ – without the kin-connection is beyond him. As it stands now, while Dean hugs Sam and Jess goodbye outside the room he and Cas share, his anger has almost completely evaporated. It’s given out to a sad kind of hopelessness. It’ll be easy enough to tell him when Cas makes the link, but that still leaves _how_ he’s going to be able to do it. How’s he supposed to tell Cas they have less than a week to get him out and next to no plans for it?

Dean leans his head forehead against the door as soon as it’s shut and locked. Baby back home, what’s he going to fucking do?

Cas’s voice is quiet, curious, _heartbreaking_. “Dean?”

He sighs and turns around. Cas is looking up at him from the flatbed and he’s got that stupid, adorable, confused look where his forehead is all crinkled and his head is tilted to the side. Fuck. Dean can’t tell him this. It’s going to break him. Cas is already nervous as all hell that they’re not going to be able to get him out before they get home. Now the time limit has been cut in more than half twice over and it’s worse than just knowing how short a time they have to get him out.

Now they have even less time together.

The moment the bucket is out of the way, Dean slumps down on the trolley. Cas doesn’t say anything, just curls his tail around his waist and over his lap – the heavy weight familiar, welcome, _comforting._ His caudal fins spread over Dean’s thighs and Cas slides up next to him, pressing against his side. He’s facing the other direction and it works. It’s the perfect position for Dean to wrap his arm over his stomach and curl his fingers over his hip, thumb brushing where Cas’s skin becomes scales. Cas almost mirrors Dean exactly, arms going around his chest and his chin rests on his shoulder.

Cas makes a curious noise and all it does is make pain twist behind Dean’s ribs. Dean can’t bring himself to look at him. He’s got _days_ left with Cas and Dean knew – he fucking _knew_ from the first goddamn kiss – that the whole damn thing with Cas was going to be nothing but _pain_ and now he’s got to break this to him and he just – he can’t. He can’t tell Cas this.

But Cas is waiting, confused and curious. Dean can’t keep Cas out of his head _and_ not fill him in on this whole fucked up situation.

“You gonna make the kin-connection?” He asks, soft and quiet because he just can’t bring himself to talk any louder.

It’s still more relaxing than he’s willing to admit when the bright light that is _Cas_ starts to pulse along the edge of his mind. Dean sags against his side, holding him tightly and pressing his face into Cas’s shoulder. He doesn’t bother trying to hide how upset he is. Cas can already tell from body language alone.

 _(Dean, what’s wrong?)_ Curiosity and concern rub over his thoughts, just like how Cas’s hand is running soothingly up his back and into his hair. _(What did Lilith say?)_

_(I don’t want to talk about it right now.)_

He doesn’t want to talk about it ever. Dean just wants all this bullshit to end. He wants Cas to be happy, and Dean wants to be happy with him – no matter how much he’ll never admit that to anyone, especially to Cas. Fuck, he doesn’t even want to admit it to himself.

Cas doesn’t ask anymore and Dean hugs him tighter. He knows Cas is curious, he can feel it along the edges of those ribbons connecting their brains together. But he doesn’t say anything, he just holds him and that’s fucking awesome. He’s not pushing when he could, when he could reach into Dean’s head and pull out what he wants to know. They sit like that for who knows how long, but it’s long enough for his legs to start hurting. Pins and needles prick under his skin when he stretches them out.

“Fuck.” He grumbles, shifting and groaning again. _(My legs are falling asleep. Can we move? Do you want to go in the tank or we could soak your tail?)_

He doesn’t exactly cross his fingers, but he hopes Cas doesn’t want to go back in the tank. Not yet, at least. If he could, he’d keep Cas out of the tank for the rest of their time together. Dean wants to keep Cas here, next time him. All that never ending cool skin and scales. It’s stupid, and sappy, and _selfish_. The water is where Cas belongs and Dean already keeps him from it so much he shouldn’t actively _want_ that.

Hello self-hatred, his old friend.

Cas unwraps from around Dean, letting him stand and shake out his legs. _(I don’t want to go in small-sea while there are still bars. Could we do the latter?)_

Dean stops himself from reaching out and running a hand through Cas’s hair. It’s still got all that shit in it that Eve use to style it and it looks good, but it looks _wrong_. It just isn’t Cas. It’s only after spreading out the towels does he realize there’s going to be too much water for them to be of any use and he kicks them away, picking up the bucket still full of water. Cas looks up at him with his head tilted curiously.

_(They’re not going to be much good with how much water we’re gonna be using. Sorry about this, Cas, but I can’t stand the shit Eve put in your hair.)_

Confusion pulses into his head, but it clears up the moment Dean lifts the bucket. He closes his eyes and ducks his head and Dean dumps the whole thing over his head. The goddamn cast keeps him from using both hands, but one-handed is good enough. It doesn’t take long to work the gel out of Cas’s hair. But touching Cas, even just like this, is fucking addictive.

 _(There. That’s better.)_ He slides his hands over Cas’s head-fins, tracing the spines from the pointed ends to where the scales spread out on his cheeks and he touches his cheeks and along his jaw, tilting his face up.

Shit. Dean wants to kiss him, wants to commit ever part of Cas to memory.

Cas doesn’t open his eyes. He just accepts what desire Dean lets into the kin-connection, responds with _yeswantdeankiss_. It sends heat tripping through his chest and Dean kisses him. That first salt-sea taste and he’s fucking _lost_. He’s going to have to give this up sooner than he ever wants to and he’s got a week to figure out how the hell he’s going to be able to do it, let alone how he’s going to get Cas out. And he’s scared shitless of what’s going to happen. Getting them all out is going to put Sam, Jess, Bobby, even Pam at risk and he doesn’t want to feel how bad it’s going to hurt if he does.

Concern touches the edges of his thoughts, even as Cas presses up into the kisses. He can feel everything Dean is feeling and that’s no good. Dean snaps walls up to hide everything but that _heat_ they’d shared that afternoon and tilts Cas’s head back more. Dean’s desperate to have all of him. He bites at Cas’s bottom lip, maybe harder than he meant to judging by his surprised gasp. But then Cas makes a needy little whine as he parts his lips under his tongue and Dean traces the sharp points of his teeth, tastes him like he knows no one else ever has – maybe never will.

His fingers are pressing hard into Dean’s upper arms and Cas holds on until Dean’s tasted his fill. But it’s always how Cas looks when he pulls away that’s one of the best parts about all of this. Cas always looks like he’s had the breath sucked out of him, eyes unfocused, cheeks red, lips spit-slick, swollen, parted. If he’s going to take pictures to remember Cas by, he should take a picture of _that_.

It’s nearly impossible to pull away from him then. Dean leaves him there panting quietly, to go fill the bucket from the tank. Cas is waiting for him on the floor when he comes back and Dean directs him how he should lay out on the floor. He’s dumping water over Cas’s dorsal fins when Cas speaks again.

_(I like it better when we do this the other way.)_

_(What do you mean?)_ Dean doesn’t even bother hoping for what Cas means by it. He puts another full bucket by the bed for later.

Cas reaches up for him when he crosses over to pick him up. Dean sits next to him once Cas is stretched out, one leg folded under him as he runs his hand over his fingers lightly over Cas’s tail. _(So what you’re saying is that you like it when I touch you?)_

Chills trip down his spine and Dean wants to smile, but he can’t. Not even when Cas starts purring softly and he rubs his face into the pillow, the fans along his tail rippling. It’s cute and Dean wants to stretch out next to him, against him. He wants to distract Cas so he doesn’t ask about dinner, he wants to forget it happened and every other fucking _stupid_ selfish thing he can think of. Cas deserves better than that.

 _(I thought that was fairly obvious.)_ There’s a moment’s pause and then Cas peeks up at him from the pillow. _(Are you going to going to tell me what Lilith said now? She didn’t translate anything for me and I didn’t recognize most of the words.)_

Shit.

Dean sighs, turning away and putting his head in his hands. He doesn’t know how to tell Cas what he wants to know  and he doesn’t want to tell him. It’s the last thing he wants to do. Cas curls around him again. Like he did this morning with his tail around his hips and along his thigh, his arms around his waist and his head in his lap. Dean tries not to look at him, staring at his leg instead, and starts running his fingers through Cas’s hair until Cas starts to purr again.

It calms him, touching Cas like this. But he still can’t bring himself to tell him, to share those memories and let Cas know how screwed they all are. Cas tugs at the back of his shirt, pulling it out from where it’s tucked in his pants. His fingers are cool against his back and it’s nice knowing that Cas gets as much comfort out of touching him as he does touching Cas.

 _(Was it really that bad?)_ Whatever Cas was keeping out of the kin-connection floods it – worry, fear, concern – he looks up at Dean, wide-eyed and confused. _(You looked so angry and Jess was crying. I didn’t want to ask Lilith what she was saying, so I waited until I could talk to you.)_

Jesus, he can’t – he _can’t_.

Cas makes another soft, curious noise and he puts his other hand up Dean’s shirt. He’s stroking Dean’s back gently, like it’s Dean who needs the comforting. _(Please, Dean. Don’t keep me out of this too.)_

_(It’s just going to upset you.)_

_(I’m already upset. Please, Dean.)_

He doesn’t want to. He just wants to keep touching Cas and he wishes he had it in him for a repeat of this morning. Usually Dean is pretty good at separating the bad enough for him to be able to focus on that.

Dean steels himself and closes his eyes. He drops the walls and dumps the memories into the kin-connection, translating everything and hoping Cas will understand without asking him to explain further. Going through the memories again, remembering Lilith’s smug face and Alistair’s stupid little laughs, they just start making him angry again. Replaying the goddamn message about the plane is just as bad and his vision starts getting blurry.

 _Shit_. He’s such a pussy. Tears. Fucking _tears_. Crying like a goddamn sissy. And it only gets worse when horror blazes down the ribbons and Cas jerks away with a desperate “No!”. Anger, fear, frikken _despair_ sears through the kin-connection and Cas is wild-eyed and folding himself into the corner and shaking his head hard enough to hurt himself.

_(I told you that you weren’t going to like it.)_

_(She can’t – Please, Dean, no!)_ He hugs his tail to his chest and Dean can’t get a word in edgewise around the begging mantra thundering through Cas’s head.

Dean can’t even keep up with everything and it hurts. It hurts his head and his chest. He can barely breathe and there’s goddamn tears on his face, and he just can’t do anything for it.  And suddenly Cas’s head clears up. It empties out and he’s looking up with wide eyes in a tear stained face. All Dean can do is reach out and gently touch Cas’s tail, trying to give him that little bit of comfort Cas usually gets from contact.

 _(We’ll figure it out, Cas. We’ll… Somehow we’ll figure it out.)_ So what if he doesn’t know how, and so what if he feels just as hopeless as Cas does. He can’t let Cas be this depressed. Dean almost feels compelled to find a way to make him happy again. _(We had no idea she was planning this and I won’t let Alistair do any tests. I’ll kick his ass before he does anything.)_

 _(But she’ll just use the pendant if you try anything. She’ll hurt me to make sure you behave. And she’ll hurt us both to make sure that I listen to her.)_ Cas makes a choked sound and presses his face to his tail. His shoulders start to shake and Dean’s heart breaks. _(What did I do to deserve this? Why is this happening? I don’t want this, Dean. I don’t want it!)_

His heart fucking _shatters_. Dean doesn’t care what noise he makes and he’s on his knees in front of Cas, arms around his shoulders and holding him tight before he even knows what he’s actually doing. _(It’s nothing you did, Cas. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was bad luck and you’re not being punished for anything, okay?)_

He’s not really listening to that small part in the back of his head that’s telling him Cas is saying he doesn’t want this whole fucking mess. Cas isn’t saying that he doesn’t want _him_. Because Cas said it this morning, didn’t he? He disobeyed all of Lilith’s rules, at the threat of that goddamn shock-tag, to make the kin-connection with him again and he’d thrown away all his doubts and fears to _want him_.

Dean presses a kiss to the top of Cas’s head. _(You trust me, right? Can you trust that I’ll get you out of here before that?)_

Cas grabs the front of his shirt, pulling him closer. _(I trust you. But you can’t lie to me.)_ He feeds back the hopelessness they’re both feeling and Dean can barely breathe for how it’s building in his damn chest. _(You’re the same as me. You don’t see any way out of this either.)_

“Fuck, Cas, I _know_ that.” The anger is starting to build again and Dean can’t take it knowing he can’t really do anything for Cas right now. “I know Lilith has us cornered, but we’re going to figure it out. Sam and I have codes we used as kids. Nobody knows what they mean except for him and me. We can coordinate our movements and we can both take out the guards or something when they walk us to the bathrooms. If we get our hands on a couple guns, we’ll have some kind of protection –”

_(She’ll still have the pendant. And there could be another tracking chip. I can’t leave when she could just follow me home. I won’t put the colony at risk like that.)_

That’s it. He’s not going to be able to get Cas to see their hope if he keeps cutting him off and shooting him down like that. Dean grips his shoulders and forces himself to be a little harsher than he should be. _(Look at me, Cas.)_

He flinches under Dean’s hands and he hates that he’s the one who made Cas do that but it’s fucking _necessary_ right now. It’s necessary to show Cas a darker part of himself he doesn’t even let Sammy know about. Cas looks up slowly and Dean damns the chickflick moment as he cups his cheek, rubbing his thumb under his eye and wiping away the tears. He tries to force a small smile, but he’s pretty sure that he’s failing at it.

_(Sam and I, we’ve been in plenty of fights in our lives. This is just another fight and I’m planning to come out on top, no matter what. If I have to, if I get my hands on a gun and she tries to hurt you or Sam or anyone I care about again – I will shoot here. I’ll shoot Alistair. I’ll carve a bloody path out of here and get you home, okay?)_

_(But you’ve never killed anyone before!)_

He runs his hands over Cas’s arms in long, soothing strokes. _(I know. But my dad was a soldier and he fought in a war when he was young. He taught me and Sammy how to fight, how to shoot a gun. We both know where to aim to incapacitate someone without killing them. We’ve got a plan to steal a lifeboat. It’s a good, solid plan that’ll get us all out of here as long as none of us get caught in the crossfire.)_

Dean sits back slowly, sliding his hands up Cas’s forearms to cover his wrists. _(The only things that we were still working on was finding a way to get supplies for seven people without getting caught. And we needed weapons to cover our escape. A lifeboat is already stocked with basic provisions for as many people as it can hold comfortably. That’s five, we can ration it out until we reach land and at least one of us can destroy the GPS on it. We’ll find a way to check for any tracking tag in your again or something.)_

The light on the edge of his mind starts getting a little brighter, hope curling along the ribbons between them. Cas flips his hands and grips his fingers tightly. _(If we do get out, you don’t have to worry about food. I can swim and catch fish and other things you can eat. I can provide enough for all of you.)_

 _(See? It’s not that bad. I’ll message Sammy tonight and we’ll get you out before we reach Florida.)_ He forces a smiles and tries to push away the unhappy thoughts.

Instead, he tries to fill the kin-connection with that thready heat pulsating in his chest. Dean is still terrified of that heat, of naming it or letting more of it out of the box he’s trying desperately to put it all back in, but he knows Cas soaks it up like it was water. And, Jesus, just that little bit makes Cas’s breath catch and his fans flex.

Dean shares more and more of that heat and he presses their foreheads together. _(It seems bad now, I know, but you were so happy earlier. Don’t forget that happy. Go back to that. Forget what happened at dinner and just focus on being happy.)_

It’s not fair that he finally got to have Cas today, that they shared their bodies and this breathless heat he doesn’t want to name for too many reasons to even count, and then Lilith ruined it. She came along and tore apart every goddamn good feeling they had over any of that and he’s trying so hard to hold on to that.

To say he’s surprised when Cas kisses him is kind of an understatement. Cas unfolds, his tail sliding out across the bed and Dean straddles his lap without ever pulling away from that soft press of lips. His hands are in Dean’s hair, holding him in place as he kisses him like he did this  afternoon and Dean sinks into it. He fits his palms to Cas’s sharp hips, thumbs brushing the skin and scales, and it doesn’t feel nearly as weird as it did the first time he’d felt it.

Cas’s thoughts are tumbling over each other, faster than Dean can even try to keep up with. There’s something _desperate_ to the way he’s digging his fingers into the back of his neck and pulling him closer, dipping down the back of his collar.

_(Make me forget.)_

Dean jerks back, surprised. _(What?)_

He shuffles down, pulling Dean with him and there’s nothing subtle about the way Cas rolls his hips or spreads out under him. _(I don’t want to think about this anymore. I don’t want to think about anything. Make me forget.)_ Cas pulls at his shirt, pawing at the buttons.

Jesus. He wants exactly what Dean told himself _he_ wasn’t going to do.

Dean knows that he _wants_ Cas, but he shouldn’t have him like _that_. Not when Cas isn’t feeling it – and Dean can tell. Cas isn’t even really thinking about _him_. But Cas is bordering on frantic with how he’s pulling at Dean’s shirt and rubbing suggestively against him. He can’t bring himself to say ‘no’ and Cas jerks the shirt up over his head and pins him to the bed. His mouth and hands, teeth and tongue are fucking _everywhere_.

It feels awesome, but every new press of fingers and drag of teeth is making something in his chest twist. He’s never felt like this when there’s the promise of sex and it’s freaking him as much as it’s annoying him. Let alone how he’s half hard just from how Cas keeps rolling and rubbing, licking and sucking – but no matter what Dean does, he doesn’t feel a single curl of arousal through the kin-connection from Cas.

He’d be insulted if it didn’t worry the hell out of him. 


	26. Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 25.**

Whenever Lilith is around, especially with Alistair in tow, Dean is immediately on edge. It’s a miracle he manages to eat anything at all during these stupid mandatory meals with her. He doesn’t like being treated a like a servant, but Dean would prefer that over her having Cas sing on command – even if they are really awesome songs and Cas is really singing them to _him_. And Cas’s tail around his ankle is more of a comfort than it should be.

Dean both loves and hates the end of these damn dinners. He loves it because it means they’ll _leave_ and he can be alone with Cas again. And he fucking despise it because it means that Lilith is going to do it again. She’s going to touch Cas’s face, his hair, his throat, and she’s going to fucking _kiss_ him. It makes Dean’s blood boil and he can’t say or do a goddamn thing about it.  

The snap of Cas’s fans catches Dean’s attention. When Dean looks over, Cas is staring at Lilith and all his fins are spread wide. Jesus Christ, what the fuck did she say to make him look that surprised? Cas takes a deep breath and his fans flatten – which must be a good sign. It’s all Dean can really hope for. If he acts out against Lilith, he’ll have to get at her before she gets her hand on the pendent because he refuses to do anything that’ll get Cas hurt like that again. And that’s not even thinking about the guards and their guns.

He turns back to finish putting the table back into place. Dean’s knuckles go white where he’s holding its edge when Lilith speaks. The food in his stomach feels heavy because he knows what’s happening and he doesn’t want to watch it. Fuck, he’s not even sure he’s going to be able to keep himself from yanking her off of Cas.

“Good boy! Now do you remember what to do when I’m leaving?”

Lilith’s not even kissing Cas or touching him sexually. She’s doing it like he’s a pet, like she’s kissing a dog on the nose, and that pisses Dean off almost as much as knowing someone else is touching _his_ Cas. And thinking like that is just as freaking stomach flipping as everything else. He’s always been okay with casual touching between friends – an arm over the shoulder, a kiss on the cheek for the overly affectionate, hair ruffling, shoulder leaning – yeah, he can take that. But Dean draws the line at full on lip to lip kissing and showing any kind of ownership over someone who -  Cas doesn’t _belong_ to him, to anyone, but he’s more Dean’s than he is Lilith’s.

Dean knows he’s coveted fucking everything that Cas has given him. His first kiss, his first touch, orgasm, _everything_. He’d wanted to keep Cas to himself from the very beginning because Cas made him feel special and he still does. Cas picked _him_. He picked Dean and he’s given himself to Dean almost every way he can. And Cas has marked Dean as his too, with mouth and teeth and tongue. What few marks Dean got to leave on him are long gone – and it’s likely the only time that Dean will ever hate on Cas’s super healing powers.

“You’ve learned so well. I’m very proud of you, Castiel.” Lilith starts talking again and Dean deems it safe too look again. He turns around and his jaw clenches damn near painfully. She’s got her hands all over his neck. “And I’ve had Eve design you another collar. I’ll give you that at lunch tomorrow. You may break the kin-connection now.”

Cas nods and Dean can tell the exact moment he cuts the link because Cas relaxes, his ruffled fans ripple easier and his shoulders get less tense. Lilith is almost at the door when Dean remembers something he wanted to ask her about.

“Hey, wait.” He steps up behind her. “Would we be able to get a few spray-bottles?”

“Spray-bottles?” Lilith turns around and she looks as amused as she does confused. “What would you even need those for? You plan on doing some cleaning?”

Dean gestures toward Cas. “To keep him damp. It’s a pain in the ass to keep dumping water on him and a spray-bottle will make it easier. It’ll cut the time in half and make less of a mess.”

She looks between them both before shrugging and opening the door. “It’s not a completely ridiculous request. The guards will bring you some later.”

It takes more effort than Dean cares to admit to force a smile on his face. He locks the door and listens, waiting for her to be gone before he looks at Cas and gives the okay. Cas sits up and the pressure builds and breaks in Dean’s head as he reaches both hands out to him. There’s that too familiar rush of _deanheatrelief_ that Cas always feels whenever he makes the kin-connection with Dean after being forced not to have it.

Two steps and he’s at the bed, kneeling next to Cas and there’s something that feels like a fire burning behind his ribs. Lilith has another collar for Cas, another way to mark him as hers and Dean is going to have to sit here and see it every time he touches Cas. It would be just as easy to take it off like he does the stupid chains, or how he wipes away the goddamn lipstick she keeps leaving all over Cas’s lips.

Cas is holding onto his sleeves and Dean barely feels the touch. All he sees is _red_.

 _(Fucking left her stupid lipstick on you.)_ He rubs his thumbs over Cas’s lips again, scrubbing them clean. He tugs Cas up and forward by his arm, kissing him harder than he normally would. Dean is _pissed_. _(And she’s got a new fucking collar.)_

It’s not _fair_.

He’s the one who actually gets to have Cas and he can’t – he’s not _allowed_ to show it. And it’s driving him crazy. He wants everyone to see that Cas picked him, that _he’s_ the one allowed to touch Cas. That he’s the one who gets to give Cas everything no one else ever has. Heat is pulsing into his head when he pulls back and Cas even _whines_. No one else makes Cas sound like that.

 _(Turn around and spread your fins.)_ He grabs Cas’s shoulder, forcing him to face away from him.

 _(Dean?)_ Cas glances back at him, confusion curling around those trembling ribbons holding their minds together.

“You wanted to know all of me, Cas. This is all of me.” Dean isn’t usually this rough. But he’s just so _angry_ , so sick and fucking tired of everything that’s getting in the way of everything he and Cas could be, of everything that’s going to force them apart.

He presses Cas’s shoulders down and pulls his hips up. If he was human, Cas would have his ass in the air and that image is making his gut twist and tighten pleasantly, but he really doesn’t care for that right now. Dean wants to make Cas _his_.

“I told you that I’m just as bad as Lilith. I fucking _hate_ you letting her touch you, having to watch you fucking _kiss her –_ and I’m not allowed to do a damn thing about it.”

All that dark possession that makes his chest feel too tight is pouring into the kin-connection and Dean doesn’t try to stop it. He folds over Cas’s back, tasting the stretch of skin between his dorsal fins with teeth and tongue. Cas squirms, his tail whipping back and forth under him and behind him where Dean’s straddling it. This ruffled fans along his tail won’t hold still and Cas is practically trembling under him.

Dean pulls his dorsal fins, coercing them to unfold and spread so the webbing between the spines isn’t in his way. He knows that Cas is sensitive along the edges of his fins where they connect to his back and his forced silence breaks the moment Dean starts licking along them. It’s just a breathy little gasp, but it sends that heat in Dean’s gut soaring.

Lilith is always telling Cas to keep his fins flat, claiming that he looks better when they’re like that – which is fucking bullshit. But that means that she’s less likely to see anything Dean does here. As soon as he starts sucking, starts putting his mark back into Cas’s skin, Cas cries out. He doesn’t stop the sounds, a variety of gasps and moans and he can barely hold still while Dean sucks another bruise next to the inside of his other dorsal fin. Dean moves his hand, intent on running his fingers over the swell of muscle and scale covering Cas’s dick, but the cold of Lilith’s chain brushes against his wrist and something jolts in his chest at it.

“I don’t want to own you like she does.” He growls, fumbling to get Lilith’s fucking chain off of him. “BU you’re mine, Cas. More than you’ll ever be hers. You are _mine_.”

Once the chain around his waist is gone, Dean works on the ones around his wrists. He’s not as rough with those, but he can’t keep his mouth off of Cas – licking and sucking at his long, white fingers and the webbing between them. Fuck, he loves Cas’s hands and the sounds he makes. It kills him that he’s going to lose all this sometime soon.

He lifts Cas up, pushing his dorsal fins flat before pulling him to his chest. _(I’m the only one who gets to touch you like this, the only one who gets to see you – hear you – like this. This is the side of me I’ve hidden from you since day one, Cas.)_ Dean goes for the spot just under and behind his head-fins, dragging his mouth over that while drawing his hands over Cas’s chest and making him whimper and press into his fingers. _(Do you know how much I hate that you’re going to leave and you might find someone back home who’ll make you forget all about me?)_

Cas hisses and jerks under his hands and Dean smiles against the back of his neck, lips dragging over the clasp of the collar. He tweaks his nipples again, just to hear of that sound again. There’s _noheatonlydeanwant_ filling the kin-connection and Dean stifles a groan, his hips rolling to rub his erection against Cas’s scales.

The collar is just like the chains. What’s stopping him from taking it off now and putting it back on like he does with the chains before Lilith come back? Fucking _nothing_ , that’s what. Dean pulls it off and throws it away just as easily. This time, when he kisses down the back of Cas’s neck there’s nothing in the way.

His thoughts have a mind of their own – as fucked up as that sounds – and Dean can’t stop them from running through the stupidest things he could say. _(I want to keep you, Cas, but I don’t want to own you – not like she does. Nothing like that. I know right from wrong and I can control myself. But this –)_ He rubs his hand over Cas’s sheath, tracing the opening and loving how it’s already opening under his touch. _(- This isn’t something anyone else gets to have, not while you’re here, not while you’re with me.)_

Cas’s hands scrabble for purchase on Dean’s knees at his sides. _(Dean-!)_

He covers Cas’s hands and presses his forehead to the back of his neck. Cas is gasping for breath and Dean knows he’s driving him crazy with the touches and everything he doesn’t bother stopping from dumping into the kin-connection. The fact that he can make Cas like this, that it’s _him_ doing this and no one else – fuck, he never wants to stop. He should though, he needs to get himself under control and make sure Cas isn’t hiding anything in his head about this – about hating this.

“I’m selfish and I don’t like sharing. I’ve had to share everything with Sam my whole life, but he has Jess now and I – I told you. You’re different. You’re in my head and it’s fucking with everything I know and – Christ, just tell me how bad I’ve fucked things up showing you what I’m really like.”

Next thing he knows, Dean is on his back and blinking up at Cas. He’s flushed and panting, but his expression is determined as he starts tugging at Dean’s shirts. He doesn’t really know what Cas is up to, but he lets him do what he wants – lets him strip him of his shirts and ignore his confusion and probing question as he picks at the bandage Jess taped over the bite.

Dean’s breath catches when he Cas looks down at the mark and fills Dean’s mind with pride and all the dark _wantminewant_ that isn’t too different from what he’s got twisting in his own chest. Cas curls his fingers over the tender scabs. He looks Dean straight in the eyes as he squeezes until Dean winces.

 _(Mine.)_ Cas pulses heat and want and _need_ and Dean has to hold himself still when Cas leans down. He has to keep from surging up and kissing him because all Cas does is _tease_ , lips barely touching. _(You and I are not so different, Dean. I want more than just my memories of you to show everyone – at home or at Lilith’s – that I was once yours.)_

Dean stops breathing entirely when all that warmth slides down those ribbons, skips against the walls he’s got blocking half his thoughts from Cas. That _heat_ bypasses his head to settle pulsing hot in his chest. Why - _why_ – does Cas feel all of that for just him? What did he do to earn all that?

_(Lilith has no claim on me.)_

Fuck. _Fuck_.

He’s got nothing to say to that. At least nothing he can say with words. But there’s a whole hell of a lot he can say with his body. With the crash of mouths, the roll of hips, the nearly frantic pawing like their hands can’t get enough of touching skin and scales. Like they just can’t get enough of this, of everything.

It sucks that he already knows that he never will.


	27. Swimming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 26.**

Cas is doing that thing again. It’s not specifically a Cas-only thing, but he does it a lot and when you’re linked to a dude’s brain, you tend to notice it a lot more. Maybe if they didn’t have so many walls between their heads, keeping each other from seeing and hearing the private thoughts, he’d know what Cas is thinking about when he fades out like that.

He’s just sitting there, staring at the half of a fish he hasn’t eaten yet. Hell, the other fish are starting to eat it instead. His gills are still moving and he’s blinking and there are fins are shifting every so often, so at least Dean knows he’s still alive. But he’s not doing anything and that’s more than a little worrying. It means Cas is thinking sad thoughts and Dean kind of _really_ hates it when Cas is sad. There’s not much he can do about the situation Cas is in right now, but at least he’s been doing a good job at keeping Cas distracted from that so far. Sort of. Hopefully?

“Could you not stare at your mermaid while I’m here? It’s making me uncomfortable.”

Dean looks back at Bobby, ducking his head slightly. It’s not that he forgot that Bobby was here – more like he was just really distracted by how Cas is lost in his thoughts. And they’re thoughts that he’s hiding from Dean, so he knows it can’t be something good. 

“Sorry.” He’d explain, but he knows Bobby well enough to know he wouldn’t give a damn. “Hey, could you do me a favour?”

“I’m not clearing out just so you two can make kissy faces.”

“Nah, you can stick around.” Dean gestures back at the tank. “Cas asked earlier if I could swim with him. Would you be able to get your hands on some scuba equipment?”

Bobby dumps his empty take-out box into the garbage can. “Finish your food. I’ll get the diving gear and don’t you even _think_ about complaining if you’re enough of an idjit to go swimming right after eating.”

“That’s a myth, y’know.”

That earns him a knock to the shoulder as Bobby goes by, but he’s grinning under his ball cap. Dean shovels the last of his scrambled eggs into his mouth and chokes down the toast. He’s already in his swim trunks by the time Bobby comes back with the whole kit and caboodle – ridiculous fin-feet included.

Sam gave Dean a crash course in how to use these before the left on this whole bullshit expedition under the lame excuse that he might just need it on this trip. It didn’t matter how many time he pointed out that he was only coming along to make sure the ship didn’t blow up and that he had no intention of going in the water – Sam _insisted_ and it’s really hard to say ‘no’ to someone who has three inches and probably a hundred pounds or more on him. And that’s maybe only slightly an exaggeration.

Bobby actually does leave after Dean is hooked up properly to everything. He only sticks around long enough to make sure Dean can climb the ladder on the platform and sit on the edge of the glass without falling off and killing himself. Dean’s pretty grateful for it. It’s nice not having to explain that he likes it better when it’s just him and Cas in the room. Sure, he loves when Sam and Jess are around, Bobby too, and Cas gets the chance to socialize – but Dean can open up more when it’s just them. Without anyone around, Dean doesn’t feel like he has to pretend about anything. Cas is in his frikken head and there’s no point in putting on any of the fronts that he does when he’s around other people.

It’s something he hasn’t had in basically forever. Hell, Dean can’t even be this open with _Sam_. He can be _himself_ with Cas, and that’s pretty freaking awesome.

Dean fixes the dive mask over his face before he drops backward over the wall and into the water. By the time he’s flipped over and swimming down, he’s got Cas’s attention and he grins around the mouth piece. That weird quiet-but-not-quiet in the kin-connection clears up as Cas stares at him and Dean reaches along the vibrating ribbons that link them.

_(Hey, how’s it going?)_

Cas blinks at him, all his fins flaring while the kin-connection gets filled with surprise and confusion. He starts looking around, mind whirring beyond what Dean can understand and it’s really frikken worrying. Dean kicks closer, still adjusting to swimming with the stupid shoes on his feet and reaches out for him.

_(What’s going on, Cas? You’ve been staring at nothing long enough for us to finish eating and for Bobby to bring me all this gear.)_

He’s still just _staring_ at Dean. Like it’s so freaking unbelievable to see him swimming. This isn’t the first time he’s been in the tank, so Dean doesn’t completely understand. Dean has just about reached Cas when he’s damn near blinded by something so bright that there’s only one word for it. _Joy_. Cas pushes away from the wall and the kin-connection is practically singing with how lost in bliss he is, swimming in dizzying circles around Dean while he floats in place.

The sounds Cas makes get muffled by the water, but Dean still recognizes them for what they are. It’s just all around _happy_ noises – whoops and near-giggles, and a ton of other sounds. Dean tries to keep him in sight, twisting around and around, but Cas is too fast. All these feelings are contagious and Dean can’t help but be amused by it – happy to see Cas like this.

_(Seriously, this is all it takes for you to be happy?)_

_(You’re swimming with me! It’s - )_ He just cuts off suddenly, stopping just as quickly as he thoughts do.

Cas curls his tail around his legs and Dean stops trying to kick to keep floating as Cas takes over with those ruffled fans along the sides of his tail. It’s hard to tell in the water, but Dean’s pretty damn sure that Cas is actually _purring_.

 _(Does this help you to breathe?)_ Cas taps a finger against the mouth piece.

He nods and gestures at the air tank on his back, explaining what it all is while Cas asks more questions and gently touches everything. Maybe they need to have a ‘look with your eyes, not your hands’ talk because Cas really does touch everything that he wants to learn about – if it’s within reach at all.

Dean raises his eyebrow at the little pout that makes Cas’s bottom lip stick out a little while he traces the mouth piece again. Through all that _happy_ there’s a solitary curl of disappointment. _(But with this, we won’t be able to kiss.)_

Turns out it’s really hard to laugh when there’s a scuba gear clenched between his teeth. _(And that’s a bad thing, huh?)_

Cas kisses the other side of the mouth piece and yeah, it’s a bad thing. It’s practically a goddamn crime to have anything between him and Cas’s mouth and Dean is just about ready to spit the fucking thing out and kiss Cas proper when Cas does something that sends that thought vanishing into the ether. And Dean doesn’t even definitely know what an ‘ether’ is.  

Not once in his life did Dean ever expect that he’d find the slide of scales along his leg to be arousing beyond all senses of the word. Of course Cas doesn’t stop there. He turns away and glances over his shoulder, watching intently as he does something with the ruffled fans along his tail. Dean’s seen them ripple more times than he can count but this time is _definitely_ different. He’d stake the impala on it.

Jesus Christ, Cas is trying to seduce him. Dean _knows_ he is. Cas isn’t saying anything, but there’s a teasing edge along the ribbons of the kin-connection and Dean knows exactly what it is.

 _(Don’t think I don’t know seduction when I see it, Cas.)_ He grabs at the water, trying to follow after him. _(You’re radio is coming in bright and clear and I_ know _what you’re up to. The moment I catch you, I’ll make you pay for that.)_ And it’s not going to be much of a punishment at that. It’ll be exactly what Cas wants, but Dean will be damned before he lets Cas be a tease and get away from him.

Cas actually laughs – outright _giggles_ , even. Dean chalks that up for why he manages lean out of reach. That starts the most infuriating game of tag Dean has ever played in his life. He can get as close as brushing his fingers against scales and webbings before Cas dives or climbs out of the way faster than Dean can rightly move. And Cas is taunting him throughout the whole goddamn thing – laughing at him in the kin-connection and flaring his fins like he’s trying to _entice_ him. It’s almost sad how easy it is for him to do that, actually.

Dean knows damn well that when he manages to grab Cas by the end of his tail, it’s because Cas _lets_ him. The first thing he does when he drags Cas to him is pull the mouth piece out of the way and kiss him. Salt water doesn’t even taste like the ocean anymore. It just tastes like Cas to him and Dean fucking loves it.

Unfortunately there’s that pesky need to _breathe_. It’s really annoying to keep on having to pull away to gasp a breath or two through the mouth piece – especially when Cas seems to have his mind set on other things. Air, lovely air, leads to Cas literally dragging him to the side of the tank and stripping him of all things scuba. This isn’t the first time Dean’s been pressed up against a wall in his life time. Girls and guys alike have done it, but happily deletes the files in his brain holding those memories to make room for this one.

He needs all the space he can get for this and every other moment he has with Cas. They’re all he’s ever going to be allowed to have.


	28. Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 27.**

The anger burning through him evaporates. Dean swallows around the lump in his throat and slumps in his seat, hands fisted on the table. It’s not so much anger in him now as it is _fear._ Fear and something not too much unlike hopelessness. He can barely squeeze the words out.

“You know.”

Dean doesn’t flinch when Lilith stands up so fast her chair nearly falls over. She looks pissed, the scary kind of pissed. She’s not red in the face and screaming like Dean is used to people being when they’re angry. It’s calmer, more _dangerous_. And she’s got the remote to Cas’s chip around her neck and she could hurt him and Dean’s chest feels like it’s going to explode.

“Of course I know, you lying little _shit_.” Lilith hisses and it sends chills down his spine. “I may not know exactly how long you’ve been doing it, but I’m willing to bet that you’ve had the damn link since I gave you back to him. Am I wrong?”

He can’t say anything. She’s not wrong, not even slightly. Dean presses his lips together and stares her down. Lilith is refusing to make the kin-connection with Cas meaning that he has no fucking clue what’s going on and Dean hates that almost as much as Cas probably does. Cas’s fans keep spreading and flattening and Dean doesn’t even need to look at him straight to know that Cas knows something is up and it’s making him antsy.

Lilith leans over the table and even though she and Dean are having the staring contest of the century, she gestures at the smug bastard to her right. “Alistair.”

At least even Alistair looks surprised. He pulls a voice recorder out and presses play. Dean’s heart nearly stops when the speaker crackles and there’s the unmistakable sound if kissing. He can feel his face get hot at the first little gasp followed by cutoff moans and he _knows_ that half of those are his.

There's a sharp gasp from Cas right around the time he probably understands what’s going on. And then the recorder crackles with Dean's voice. “Kin-connection, Cas. Make the damn link.”

Cas doesn’t breathe again until the recorder is put away and Dean can hear those ruffled fans along Cas’s tail going wild. Fuck, what’s he thinking? Dean wants the kin-connection. He needs it. He  _needs_ to know what Cas is feeling, what he’s thinking. His head feels too fucking empty, too big, too quiet without Cas in it and Dean _hates_ it.

“How did you get that?” He asks, low and quiet because that’s all he can manage now.

And this, all of this is his fault. He knew that Lilith banned them from the kin-connection and she’d already hurt Cas once for using it without her permission. Dean should have stopped him, he should have told Cas ‘no’. He shouldn’t have asked for the damn link when Cas’s safety was on the line from the moment he made the kin-connection the other morning.

“How do you think?” Lilith is full of barely restrained fury and she reaches for Cas.

The all too familiar sour taste of self-hate starts burning in Dean’s chest again. His whole body feels too tight. Lilith could hurt Cas. She could force them apart and Dean might never see Cas again. He can’t do that – he can’t let that happen. Not again. He’d spent three days already pacing, not eating or sleeping, barely thinking because he felt too alone inside his own damn head. Dean can’t go back to that – not now, not when Cas is still so close and he only has two days, two fucking days, until Meg’s plan goes into action and they’ll be free to get Cas home safely - but how much has he fucked this up now?

Cas pulls away from Lilith’s hand, jerking back so sharply Dean reaches out on reflex to keep him from falling off the stool. He squeezes Cas’s shoulder once before letting go – reluctantly. Dean has to hold himself back from stretching across the table and doing something terrible – something _painful_ – to Lilith when she grabs Cas’s collar and hauls him forward, almost completely onto the table.

The collar. That new collar. _Fuck_.

“You put a transmitter in the collar?” It’s a stupid place to put it, but he should have fucking expected something like that. He should have been smarter and Cas is looking at him, wide-eyed, fins twitching, _scared_. John would be kicking his ass for making such a stupid mistake. “But if he’d gone in the tank that would have –”

“It’s got a waterproof casing, you idiot.” Alistair and his stupid fucking grin. Next chance Dean gets, he’s going to rebreak his goddamn nose. “We wouldn’t have gotten anything while he was underwater, but that wasn’t what we were hoping to hear.” He pulls a gun out of his coat, pointing it at Dean – a small mercy that it’s not aimed at Cas, whether it’s a dart-gun or not. “If you’re thinking of trying anything, don’t bother.”

Like there’s anything he could try. Even if Dean attacked, there’s who-knows-how-many guards standing outside the door and there are who-knows-how-many of them watching over Sam and Jess, Bobby and Pam. They’ve got radios and with one little word, any one of them could be hurt. His hands are tied and it’s pissing him off.

Dean has his eyes on Alistair and that gun when the crash happens. Lilith is still standing and she’s got her fingers curled around that goddamn collar. Cas is on the floor now, the stool knocked over and his tail is thrashing. He’s scrabbling at her hand and making breathless gasping noises.

 _Jesus_ , Cas can’t _breathe_.

He’s on his feet just before Lilith lets go but he doesn’t move from there, not when Alistair cocks the gun. Dean only moves when Lilith fucking _kicks_ Cas. Hard enough to send him falling back into the counter and the drawers under it. His stomach turns at the sound it makes. The thump-crack makes bile rise in his throat and Dean doesn’t have any words to explain the pained sound Cas makes before he drops onto his side.

All Dean sees is _red_ and that sound Cas made keeps playing in his head over and over and over.

The table goes up and Dean drops, using it like a shield between him and Alistair’s gun. He puts his shoulder into it, throwing it forward and he doesn’t even hear the curses and crashes as it goes barreling into Alistair and Lilith. The table is on the floor and Dean is vaulting over it before Alistair gets his feet under him.

Pain stabs up his arm when he slams his cast into Alistair’s face. The crunch his nose makes when it breaks is beyond satisfying. The hit sends Alistair toppling back into the tank and his head on the glass sounds the same but different from Cas hitting the counter. He doesn’t make any kind of sound when he sinks to the floor, slumping over along the wall.

Lilith is just starting to pick herself up when Dean tackles her. She’s already got her hand on the pendant and Dean wraps his hand around hers, stopping her from pushing the damn button and hurting Cas any more than the bitch already has. Her other hand is flailing and she gets a lucky swipe in, but Dean doesn’t even _feel_ her nails when they drag across his cheek.

He can barely breath, barely see, barely _think_. He’s had enough of this pretentious bitch and he can’t – he _won’t_ – let her hurt Cas again. She’s got blood on her lips and he’s pretty sure that it isn’t his.

“Dean?” That small voice shreds the black cloud wrapped around his head. “Dean okay?”

One glance tells him that Cas is sitting up. His face is scrunched up and he’s blinking more than Dean’s ever seen him blink before, looking around like he’s confused – like he can’t make sense of what he’s seeing.

“Cas, you okay?” He slams Lilith’s hand down to the floor, not caring that she winces.

“Head hurt.” Cas hisses quietly and he’s touching the back of his head when Dean looks again.

That angry burn flares in his chest again and Dean nearly chokes on it. He can barely hold back the goddamn _growl_ in his throat and he leans over Lilith, grabbing her other hand from under his chin and pinning that to the floor too. “Let the remote go, leave it with me, and you’ll walk out of here without another scratch.”

It’s stupid, stupid, fucking _stupid_. If he lets her out of here, she’ll just get the guards and they’ll have weapons and he doesn’t have anything to fight against that. He can’t protect Cas, he can’t even protect himself – let alone everyone else he cares about. Too many goddamn weak spots and he doesn’t know what to fucking _do_ besides make threats.

“But if you hurt Cas with that fucking thing again, you won’t be walking out of here, period.” He lifts her hand again and shakes it as if to make his point.

Lilith looks up at him and she looks worried. She looks _scared_ and Dean feels almost viciously justified by that. It’s like the first time she hurt Cas with the remote and Dean had just _snapped_. This time he’s more in control, but he’s still _angry_. Lilith’s upper lip curls and then she just goes limp under him. He feels her hand go loose under his fingers and he lets go just a bit, just enough for the pendant to drop out of her hand. Something tight in Dean’s chest releases just a little and he relaxes.

Dean blames that mistake for how he doesn’t foresee what happens next, how he’s not prepared for Lilith’s grin and her _scream_. It damn near stops his heart and Dean slaps a hand over her mouth harder than he probably ever intended and he can’t bring himself to care. He doesn’t need to look when the door opens to know that there’s guards – probably more than there should be because Lilith fucking _planned this_.

There’s chaos for the first few seconds. He hears Cas snarl and there’s crashing and banging going on. But Dean has to get to Cas, keep him safe, keep them away from him. Dean doesn’t even get to his feet before the guards are dragging him off Lilith and she’s spitting curses a woman of her status would usually frown upon – he’d be proud if he didn’t hate every last hair on her head and wasn’t shouting his own.

They’re taking him _away_ from Cas. There’s too many people between them and one of them is Lilith and she has that fucking _pendant_. At least most of these guards aren’t going to be leaving without several bruises of their own. They’re only pointing dart-guns at him and that’s not enough to make him stop fighting.

Cas is hissing and snarling, baring his teeth and snapping at anyone who gets close enough. His fans are flared wide and his tail isn’t holding still, whipping back and forth. He doesn’t look like he’s going to take any shit from any of them and if Dean wasn’t so fucking _scared_ for what’s going to happen next, he’d be really proud.

Lilith is suddenly right there in his face and she looks so goddamn _smug_ he could hit her just to wipe that look off her face. She’s standing so close, too close, and blood-chilling doesn’t even begin to describe her smile. She speaks softly - too quiet for anyone else to hear. “You should have known better, Winchester. Now sit back and _watch_.”

Dean’s heart does a funny little clench-twist and his whole body locks up. He can barely breathe. She’s going to hurt Cas again. The last time she did it Cas had ended up sick for nearly three fucking days and he wasn’t able to do anything then and he can’t do anything now.

Fuck, _fuck_.

“No! Lilith, don’t!” He sounds too panicked, too scared, and he knows Cas can hear it in his voice but he can’t stop it – God, he can’t stop fucking _anything_ – useless, so fucking _useless_ – he can’t protect anyone he loves –

He looks at Cas, meets his eyes and _Jesus_. Cas doesn’t look scared. Cas looks _sorry_ and Dean remembers Cas’s promise, his promise that it wouldn’t happen again, that Dean wouldn’t have to see this again. But it’s happening right now and neither one of them can stop it – not with a dart-gun digging into Dean’s side and two muscle bound assholes holding him down.

No, please, no. Why Cas? Why him? Why is this happening to either of them?

Cas screams.

It’s worse when the sound isn’t muffled by water. Dean can’t look away, he can barely breathe while Cas is gasping and screaming until his voice breaks. He’s writhing on the floor, tail thrashing, arms flailing. He’s arching and twisting and it’s nothing but rasping noises coming from Cas until he just _stops_. He keeps twitching as long as Lilith holds the remote, but Cas is gone. He’s out for the count.

Lilith drops her hand and Cas goes completely still, breathing roughly. Dean’s eyes sting and he doesn’t have the energy to do anything else until Lilith starts talking again, giving orders to have Cas and Alistair carried out. They’re orders to take Cas away again, to take him to Lilith’s office where Dean’s never supposed to see him again.

“Don’t touch him!” Dean shouts – begs – trying to pull his arms free. “Cas didn’t do anything! I made him make the kin-connection. I was the one who lied to you. It was all me!”

“Frankly I don’t believe anything you say, Dean. You’ve proven yourself very untrustworthy.” Lilith crosses her arms while watching a pair of guards put their grimy hands all over Cas, picking him up and Dean struggles harder as they take him out of the room.

“Castiel will be staying in the mobile tank in my office now. You can stay here and think about what you’ve done. I’m limiting you to one meal a day and you and your family will be disembarking when we reach Florida. You can find your own way home from there, and don’t expect to be receiving any further pay from me.”

The guards more or less drag Dean to his bed while Lilith just keeps talking. He doesn’t make it easy for them and he doesn’t stay down when they force him to sit. Dean doesn’t give a shit about the money. He only applied for this stinking job so he could stay with Sam and the others. And he doesn’t even care all that much about the food either.

“Oh, and before I forget.” Lilith steps up in front of him and holds out her hand. “This is going to be solitary confinement so I’ll be taking your phone now.”

Shit.

He may have copied the videos and pictures, but they’re still on the phone itself. And he deleted all the messages with Sam and the others, but who knows how many they sent him since? And aren’t deleted messages still stored on it somewhere? What if Lilith’s able to tell that they changed the settings? It could tip her off to the whole fucking plan and he still doesn’t know exactly _what_ that plan is.

Dean needs to destroy the evidence. He’s got way too much experience in that department then he’d like to have, but as needs must. The cellphone is in his jean’s pocket, digging into the crease of his thigh. He shrugs off the hands of the guards and stands, making a show of getting it out for her.

There’s only one way that he can keep Lilith from finding out anything and that’s by tossing the damn phone straight over her head and into the tank. Lilith makes the most scandalized look that Dean just can’t help smirking at. She turns on her heel and – glory hallelujah – actually leaves without another goddamn word. Dean hopes that’s the last that he hears from her. If he’s lucky, she won’t decide to come back and lecture him for a good hour or two later.

The guards leave with Lilith and the door beep-clicks when they lock it from the outside. He’s officially stuck in here with a hell of a mess to clean, no phone to tell the others what happened or to keep up to date with what the hell is going to happen in two days, and he doesn’t have _Cas_. He’d be willing to bet his left nut too that the computers have been cut from the system and he’s not going to be able to do much more beyond playing a rousing game of solitaire.

It’s like prison all over again.

Except back then he hadn’t just lost Cas by failing him. _Again_. 


	29. Not Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 28.**

Dean eats his breakfast like a good little boy, ignoring that every chew pulls at the bruises on his face that Lilith’s fucking guards left with the few punches they got in on him the other day. He eats everything right down to the soggy toast and the runny eggs. The bacon is burnt and the hash browns are under cooked. He’s willing to bet damn good money that Lilith ordered all his food to be fucked up on purpose. Either way, he’s going to need the energy.

Today’s the day.

He spent half of yesterday staring useless at his phone sitting at the bottom of the tank, trying to think of some way to contact Sam and Meg. He still doesn’t know what time the rescue is going to go down or even what exactly _is_ going to happen. That’s something Meg kept to herself.  “Don’t want that information falling into the wrong hands.” She’d said. Well thanks a lot. Now he’s left in the dark and for all he knows, Meg’s help is going to pop out of the shadows like fucking ninjas.

The other half of yesterday had been spent packing and unpacking his guitar case. He’d popped the false bottom to the lid of the case and emptied the entire box of condoms in there – because those will be necessary as hell once he gets Cas back. He didn’t bother with his magazines, but he did stick Cat’s Cradle in there, and his journal. Dean moved the picture of him and his mom to his wallet and hunted down the chain he normally doesn’t use to keep it attached to his belt. The only pictures he has of his mom are in there and he doesn’t want to lose those.

He removed the strings from his guitar, tucking those into the storage section. He filled the rest of the empty space there with his toiletries bag and the bottle of lube. That’s also a necessity and not something he wants to ask anyone on this new boat for. Meg had told him to pack only the necessities, so he knows for a fact that they’re not staying on this boat. And these _are_ the necessities.

Dean managed to fit two t-shirts tightly rolled t-shirts, a couple pairs of underwear, and a few sets of socks into the body of the guitar. It was a tight fit, but he also got another pair of jeans to squeeze into the space around the guitar itself. There’s another empty section under the very top of the neck and dean fits his swim shorts and his sweat pants there. He thanked his lucky stars when he was able to shut the case with a flannel and a pair of jeans laid over the guitar itself. It’s was a tight fit and he secured one of his spare belts around it to make extra sure that it stayed shut.  It’s heavier over his back than he’s used to, but the strap holds just fine.

Today, escape day, he’s wearing one of his muscle shirts, a flannel and a hoodie. The sweater Cas had worn before – which he’s keeping for sentimental reasons and that only slightly bothers him – is tied around his waist. Every hour he takes off the vacuum sleeve that protects his cast for fifteen minutes before putting it back on again. Just in case he ends up in the water at some point today.

None of his other clothing is important and he only has the one set of boots. Everything else is just unnecessary baggage.

He has his dad’s lighter and the necklace Sammy gave him. The last thing that Dean takes from the drawers that have been his dresser for the last two weeks is a ring box. In it is a silver band with a grove cut around it. It’s his mother’s wedding ring. It was all that she and John were able to afford when they got married. Dean hates that he forgot this like he did Sam’s necklace, too preoccupied with Cas to remember to put it on when he stopped working on the engines.  He puts the ring on and zips the box into his hoodie pocket for later storage.

He didn’t sleep the night Lilith took Cas, and he barely slept last night either. Dean hasn’t touched the bed since he threw his tantrum after Lilith left. His guitar case is resting on it and that’s that. He won’t sit on Sam’s bed either.  They’re too… big; empty like how his head feels without the kin-connection.

Dean doesn’t want to lay down. If he doesn’t move or occupy his mind somehow, he ends up thinking about whether or not Sam and Jess are okay. Or he’ll think about how Bobby has only a few other idiots to help him keep the boat running and that just makes Dean feel guilty as hell because he should be out there with him. The more he thinks, the more he hates himself.

If he doesn’t keep himself focused on anything else, his thoughts usually somehow always swivel back to Cas. And he definitely doesn’t want to start thinking about him. About how he’s probably locked up in that tiny tank somewhere in Lilith’s office. Dean hopes to whoever’s listening that Lilith shocking Cas again didn’t make him sick.

He tries to keep his hands and his mind busy. If it didn’t mean that he would automatically think of Cas, Dean would plug in the USB drive he’d copied all the phone data to and watch the videos he has saved. He hasn’t had the chance to view those and enjoy them to their full extent. Chances are, he’s never going to be actually be able to watch them the way he intended them. Not when they’ll just remind him of Cas once he’s gone home.

Instead, Dean spends the whole morning playing solitaire and pinball on the computer. His stomach is growling by lunch and he spends a good hour just pacing. He’s tired, worried, and anxious. There are a million other things going on in his head and his chest that make it nearly too hard to breathe, too hard to move.

When the hell is this supposed to happen? Meg should have given them a time, should have told him so he’d actually be ready.

That said, he’s not at all prepared for the goddamn _explosion_ that rocks the ship. He’s thrown into the side of the tank and he barely keeps his feet under him. Dean goes for his guitar case, slinging it over his back on his way to the door. He pulls the strap tight and listens. He doesn’t hear anyone out in the hallway and he knows what that means. The guards are gone.

If he remembers the security system right, in case of emergency – and judging by how the boat is starting to list toward the aft, this would definitely be considered an _emergency_ – all doors that auto-lock should release. He twists the handle and pulls. Yes! Unlocked.

As soon as he’s in the hall, Dean can hear screaming and there’s banging and shouts over all the noise. And gunfire. There’s goddamn gunfire and the only weapon that he has is his pocket knife. He slips that out, flips it open and hides it in the palm of his hand. He hits the stairwell and damn near runs right into Jess.

“Oh good, he got out just fine.” Meg pushes past them and shoves a rolled towel into his arms. Without thinking Dean tucks it between the guitar and his back. “Those are your boyfriend’s. Come on, we don’t have much time.”

Sam is right on her heels and they share one hard-eyed look before he continues up the stairs, putting Jess between him and Dean. They hit the deck and they all drop into a crouch, like it will do them any good in trying to avoid stray bullets.

“Where’s Bobby and Pam?” Dean asks when they reach a fucking _drawbridge_ linking a new boat to theirs.

A half dozen people are crowded around the opening and they’re either involved in fisticuffs with a few guards, or they’re firing at anyone who steps into sight with a weapon in their hands. Anyone unarmed is running around like chickens with their heads cut off, bottlenecking as they try crowding onto the lifeboats.

“I’m right here, idjit.” Bobby grunts from behind him, dropping a hand on his shoulder that nearly scares the shit out of him. “Pam didn’t meet me where she was supposed to and the door to the med-floor from the stairs was busted to hell in that blast, I couldn’t get through. What the hell are they firing rocket launchers for anyway?”

“We can get to her from Lilith’s access. I gotta go that way to get Cas anyway.” Dean taps Jess’s shoulder and points to the other ship. “You go with Meg, book us a room and make sure there’s a chocolate on my pillow. Bobby, can you and Sam get as many guns and ammo? As many as you can. Give me ten minutes Sammy and I’ll meet you in storage – help these guys keep the guards busy in the meantime. We need that x-ray machine so Pam can get the thing out of Cas.”

Meg looks at him sharply and Dean thinks he might see the colour draining from her face. “He’s in Lilith’s rooms?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Alistair and Gordon were working on the tank up here in the storage behind the kitchen. I thought that’s where they brought him.” She says it almost too softly for Dean to hear. “They aimed for the propeller with the first hit. The second is going straight for her rooms.”

Dean’s heart twists, thumps painfully, steals his breath. He thinks it might actually have stopped. He’s up and running for the doors down to Lilith’s rooms, deaf to their shouts. He’s got to get there before they blow it up. It could _kill_ Cas if it hits in the wrong place and that thought turns his blood to ice.

He shoulders past everyone, shoving his way to Lilith’s quarters. The door that’s usually locked is hanging wide open and Dean is through it in the space of a heartbeat. There’s smoke everywhere, billowing up through the floorboards and from outside. Dean pulls his hoodie up over his nose. He barely gets three steps before another explosion hits the boat and he hits the floor.  

 _Cas_. No, no, please, no.

It’s hard to get his feet under him, thrown off balance by the weight on his back. Dean gets knocked down again by someone rushing by. He catches a flash on blond hair and he thinks it might be Eve, but she doesn’t stop. Another couple people squeeze past, hacking and coughing and shouting about a fire.

The doors to Lilith’s office are barely hanging on their hinges. There’s smoke and fire and a big fucking hole in the wall, metal curled in and blackened. In one glance he takes in the situation – sees Alistair dead on the floor and Lilith bloodied and hysteric. She’s shouting about how Cas belongs to her and she’ll see him dead before she’ll let him get free, waving the dart-gun around while pushing the tank away from the hole.

Her dress is blocking most of the tank so Dean can’t see all of Cas from here, but he can hear him. God, he can _hear_ him. Cas’s screams are still loud through the glass and over the roar of the fire eating away at the furniture and along the walls. Lilith’s using the fucking remote again and she doesn’t even know that he’s here.

Dean is on her in moments, knocking the gun from her hand and pulling her back by the hair. Whether she knows how’s got her or not doesn’t matter to him. Dean wraps an arm around her waist, takes a step, and heaves her out the hole. She screams until she hits the water and Dean hopes she’s out of reach for the remote to work.

Cas is drifting on his side in the tank. It’s on its side and it’s got a new lid, thick and black and clamped to the glass. The wall on the top has a decent crack in it, but he doesn’t want to break that and risk Cas getting cut by any shards. Cas is barely moving, fans twitching, gills fluttering. Dean fumbles at the clamps, desperate to get his hands on Cas and make sure that he’s okay.

The clamps are simple enough and he jumps out of the way when it falls away and the tank empties across the floor. Dean drags the lid out of the way and crouches next to the tank. Cas is coughing and hacking, spitting water and trying to push himself up but he can’t even get to his elbows without his arms giving out on him. Dean drags him out from the tank and Cas growls. He hisses and snarls and he tries to shake Dean’s hand off, tries thrashing, but the movements are weak.

“Cas, calm the fuck down! It’s me!”

He doesn’t stop fighting until he’s half in Dean’s arms. Cas twists and blinks up at him, eyes only slightly unfocused for a moment. As soon as it must click in his head, Cas makes a lingering, high-pitched noise. It’s one that Dean has learned is associated to happiness. He move a little slow, but Cas wraps his arms around Dean’s shoulders and presses his face to his neck, stubble rubbing against his skin and Dean doesn’t care.

Dean hugs him tighter than Cas is holding onto him. Without the kin-connection, Cas probably doesn’t understand the apologies he’s whispering against the twitching spines and webbing of his head-fin. He’s begging forgiveness for getting Cas hurt again, begging him to forget that this is all his fault.

The pressure builds in his temples a few times, falling away before it breaks. It’s like Cas is scrabbling at his mind, trying to get a good grip to make the kin-connection but he’s too weak and that makes something in Dean’s stomach turn. Dean tries to focus on that pressure the next time it touches his thoughts. He imagines wrapping his hands around those trembling ribbons that he thinks make up the kin-connection and he thinks about pulling at them, dragging them closer and making them real.

When it does finally open like flood gates, Dean is so fucking relieved he doesn’t care that he’s filling it with the warm, fuzzy feelings in his chest. He pulls back from their hug and starts checking Cas over with gentle touches, looking for any injuries.

 _(You didn’t get hurt in the explosion, did you? Aside from what Lilith just did, you’re okay, right?)_ He tilts Cas’s face from side to side, making sure he’s not bleeding from the ears or something – if that’s even possible with his head-fins. _(I can’t believe those dumbasses fucking torpedoed us. I’ll have Meg’s head for this.)_ Torpedo, rocket, same shit different pile. The case still stands that she should have _warned_ him of this so they could have been better prepared.

 _(I’m fine, Dean.)_ Cas just smiles up at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he reaches up and touches his face. _(They hurt you.)_

 _(Not as bad as I hurt them.)_ Dean undoes the collar and throws it away, happy to finally be rid of the fucking thing. He remembers how one of the guards had been limping when he’d left the room and that’s all the thought space he wastes on that, pulling Cas in to kiss him. It’s hard, fast, messy, and Dean doesn’t want to stop it because it could be their last but he has to and it almost kills him to break it.

_(I’ve got to go get Pam. Meg and Jess are already on the other boat and Bobby and Sam are helping these ‘activists’ – Christ, they act more like pirates – keep the guards pinned. Everyone else is getting on the lifeboats.)_

_(Are pirates bad?)_ Cas asks while Dean gets the towel bundle out from behind his back.

He hands it over. _(Yeah, Cas. Pirates are bad. You stay in my head okay? Go far enough that no one can catch you, but you stay in my head until I tell you if they’re good people or not. You remember what to do in either case, right?)_

Cas hugs the towel tight as he lifts him up. He staggers with the new weight and sends up silent thanks to the holy pie gods for the hole in the wall actually clearing the air of smoke. Dean wobbles toward the hole.

 _(Come back to remove the tags, or find my way home.)_ Cas repeats the rules and then looks down at the bundle in his arms. _(What is this?)_

_(Meg gave ‘em to me. They belong to you.)_

_(What happened to Lilith?)_

Jesus, it’s like they’re playing twenty questions. He’s actually thankful for it. It keeps him from thinking about how this might be the last time he gets to touch and talk to Cas. _(I shoved her out. If a lifeboat hasn’t picked her up, then she’ll still be in the water.)_ Hate burns through him. _(I won’t hold it against you if you want to get revenge on her. If the blood in the water isn’t enough to draw some sharks, you’re welcome to bleed her a little more and leave her to them.)_

There’s a flash of surprise in the kin-connection. It vanishes quickly, lost in understanding, acknowledgment, and the heat that never fails to make his heart kick up a few notches. It’s beating so hard it’s making his chest hurt and Dean hesitates when he steps as close to the opening in the wall as he dares.

He seals his emotions from the kin-connection so Cas doesn’t feel the sick _selfishness_ twisting in his gut. Dean doesn’t want to let go. He doesn’t want to let the ocean have Cas again. He wants to keep him – why can’t he just _keep him_? Cas’s emotions are twisting unhappily along the ribbons between them and Dean hates that almost as much as he does his own thoughts.

“Cas.” He mumbles – and fuck, he sounds sulky. Cas looks up sharply and Dean can’t look at him, instead staring down at the towel Cas is holding to his stomach. He doesn’t want to say ‘goodbye’, so he says something else instead. Something just as bad. “Stay safe, okay?”

 _Pain_ filters into the kin-connection and Dean has to force himself not to turn around, to carry Cas out of here. He has to force himself to keep what could be their last kiss to nothing but a gentle touch. He has to force himself to step forward and heave Cas over the edge of the hole, hoping beyond hope that there’s nothing in the water below for him to hit.

Dean doesn’t watch Cas fall. He’s got thing he needs to do and he needs to think positive or some stupid hippy shit like that. He’ll see Cas again. That wasn’t there last goodbye. That wasn’t their last _anything_. But right now he needs to find Pam.  

A few minutes later and he wishes he hadn’t.


	30. Anxious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 29.**

Dean didn’t sleep. _Again_. How many nights does that make now? He doesn’t know. He’s tired, but it’s like he’s too tired to sleep. His brain won’t shut off and he sometimes feels like he can’t breathe. He’d kill for a drink right now, but he doesn’t have anything and he can’t bring himself to ask anyone for anything.

How the fuck is he supposed to sleep in the first place when they got Pam _killed_? Meg said Pam was supposed to get the hell out of her room after the first hit, and that the first hit was aimed at the propellers. It should have been too low on the boat for it to have affected Pam’s room at all. Judging from what Dean saw, it was the hit to Lilith’s room that did the most damage. Pam might have been standing too close to that wall and go thrown across the room. Who fucking knows?

All he can remember is vacant eyes, blood and bones.

Every time he closes his eyes, he sees it. Dean should have gone for Pam first. He should have gone to get her as soon as he realized she wasn’t with the group. Bobby can take care of himself and sure, Pam’s been known to kick a few teeth in during a bar fight or two, but she – Dean should have been there to protect her.

He’s never not going to feel like shit for this.

Dean rolls onto his stomach and pulls the pillow over his head, trying hard not to think about last night. He can hear Jess getting up– which means the sun must be just starting to peek over the horizon because she’s like some kind of attractive human rooster.

And like a goddamn cherry on top of everything else, Cas doesn’t need him anymore. Cas had been all for sitting in his lap and singing a song to say goodbye to Pam. But they hadn’t really seen each other in days and Dean had thought – had hoped – that Cas would stay with him for the night. For every night between now and when they get him home.

Dean’s has less than two weeks before they get Cas back to his home and call him selfish, but Dean wants to spend all of that time with Cas. He’d be more than happy to spend the whole time fucking, committing every last inch of him to memory – with pictures if Cas’ll let him. But he wants more than that. He wants the kin-connection to fill that suffocating _silence_ in his head. Even if they don’t _say_ anything, he just wants Cas _here_.

He’s not that surprised that Cas picked staying in the ocean during the night. Cas has his freedom now, he has _choice_. Who would pick Dean – especially when staying with him means coming back on a boat full of strangers – over finally getting a chance to sleep where they belong? That’s just it, isn’t it? Cas doesn’t belong with him. He belongs down in the dark with his own kind and no matter how much true that is, it still fucking _hurts_.

His chest feels tight and there’s a sharp pain thudding behind his ribs. Dean refuses to believe it’s his heart.

For probably the millionth time since it happened, he thinks about Cas telling him that he wants to sleep in the sea. It’s what he’d been expecting but he’d still shut Cas out of most of his head and forced a smile. There’d been too many dark thoughts – about losing Pam, about losing Cas soon, all his self-hate, _everything –_ that he couldn’t let Cas feel that. He couldn’t bring Cas down when despite the sadness Cas was feeling about Pam, his entire being was practically _singing_ with joy. He’s so fucking happy to be free that Dean just _can’t_ bring himself to drag Cas down from that high.

It hurts more when he remembers how Cas had told him to go inside and go to bed. Dean had been cold, wet and shivering and Cas had slid out of his lap. Cas had been confused before Dean leaned in to kiss him goodnight. There was no way he could trust himself not to take it further and he’d had to force himself to leave it at nothing more than that. It was just a little kiss and God does he hope that it wasn’t their last. If he could bring himself to do it, he’d might even pray that running his hand through Cas’s hair before he’d gone inside hadn’t been the last time he got to touch him.

And then there’s the _fear._ Dean is fucking afraid that because Cas sort of knows his way home, he won’t see him again. What if he’s gone already? What if that was it and he took off in the night? What if he doesn’t come back up and Dean’s left with this – this fucking _ache_ in his chest and all this dark, empty space in his head?

Fuck this. He can’t take it anymore.

Dean yanks the curtain back and he’s out of bed, changed into his swim trunks, and out the door before Sam can lift his head from his pillow. He needs to move. He needs to fucking _do something_. Either it’s walking or something else he doesn’t know, he doesn’t care, he just needs to get up and go and wait. They’d decided that Cas would be back in the morning. He’d _promised_. Well, now it’s morning.

He starts pacing. Back and forth, back and forth, from one side of the boat to the other in front of the railing.  Every time he reaches a wall, he stops and looks out at the water, looking for Cas. There’s no flash of black scales or blue dorsal fins and Dean loses track of how many times he repeats the pattern. Every step that Cas isn’t there yet sends his thoughts twisting darker. The sun is nearly completely over the horizon and Cas isn’t coming back. He’s left and he didn’t say ‘goodbye’ and he’s _gone_.

Dean’s knees nearly give out under him when the headache pressure builds in his temples. That bright light bursts into his head, filling all the nooks and crannies with _happyconcerndeanfree_. He’s so fucking relieved that he doesn’t even bother hiding it and he might actually crack a smile. The least he can do is crack a joke so Cas doesn’t think anything is wrong.

 _(You’re late.)_ And that’s all he has. That’s all he can say and that’s not good enough. He needs to keep talking, keep saying something or Cas might say that he’s going to leave now. _(Have you eaten yet?)_

Cas shows up just off the swim-deck, the waves are licking at his chin and his hair is sticking to his forehead. Dean licks his lips. He wants to push it back, tangle his fingers in it and kiss the sea salt from his lips. He doesn’t even notice the taste anymore. If anything, it tastes like _Cas_.

_(I have. What are the plans for today?)_

That’s a good sign. At the very least it means that Cas isn’t going to be leaving right now. Dean leans forward on the railings. He imagines a map and as he explains, he paints a line across it, charting their course. _(We’re going to raise anchor in a few minutes and keep going toward Africa. We should reach there in a few days, then we’ll spend a couple days refueling and getting more supplies before we head south to the islands where we found you.)_

The thought makes his heart skip a beat. That’s everything he doesn’t want to think about, but he has to tell Cas all of this. _(That’ll be another couple days. All in all, a week and a half – maybe less.)_ Hopefully more – and that’s a thought he keeps hidden and hates himself for even thinking. _(Depends on the weather. Longer if we stop every night so you can find a place to sleep down there.)_ Because there’s no way in hell that Cas is going to come on board now that he can fucking _swim_ again – which is exactly what he’d told Benny yesterday when they had literally ran into each other when Dean was going to meet Sam to get the x-ray machine.

Dean closes off more of his mind, hides more of those dark emotions that are only going to trouble Cas. It hurts to look at him now. Cas is barely even a whole five feet away and it feels like the whole goddamn ocean is between them. _(Benny would rather we keep going every night, since we’ll get to our destination sooner. But I told him you don’t want to come on board and we all understand that.)_

Just because he understands it doesn’t mean he has to like it.

There’s a few moments of silence. Dean can practically _hear_ Cas thinking it over. When he finally speaks and Dean’s chest squeezes so tight he thinks his ribs are going to crush all those squishy internal organs that are oh so important to his ongoing existence. He snaps away the surprise and that all encompassing ache before too much of it can get into the kin-connection.

 _(If I’m only slowing your return to your own home, Dean, you can just show me the direction I need to go and I can return on my own once we’ve removed the chip.)_ And of course there’s barely any emotions attached to it – at least not the kind that Dean wants – needs – to hear. He needs to know that Cas wants him as bad as he does, that he’ll hate leaving as much as Dean doesn’t want to see him go.

_(It’s up to you, Cas. You’re the one that’s going to have to make the trip. We were going pretty slow yesterday so you could keep up without tiring yourself out or anything. But you’d cover more ground – so to speak – and get home sooner if you rode with us, y’know?)_

So fucking pathetic. So fucking _transparent_. Stay, Cas. Just fucking _stay_. That’s what he’s trying to say.

_(Do you trust these people?)_

_(I trust Benny. And we’re not in the same situation like we were on Lilith’s boat. We’ve got weapons and you’re not going to be put in a tank or anything.)_ He can’t stand being so far away anymore and he opens the gate, stepping out onto the swim-deck. _(Nobody is going to collar you, chain you up, or try and control you here, Cas. I won’t let them. I know my promises haven’t meant shit so far, but I swear I won’t let anyone do that to you again.)_

Appreciation curls through the kin-connection and Dean feels slightly relieved that Cas swims just a little bit closer to the boat. _(You did keep your promise. I’ve got my freedom and I’m going home.)_

That’s pretty much the only one. There’s too much anger – at himself, at Lilith and her insane crew – to stay trapped in his head and he knows Cas can feel some of it. _(Yeah, and I told you that I’d keep you safe but Lilith hurt you more times than I want to count. Alistair cut off pieces of you and they fucking_ tortured _you almost right up to the very end.)_ He slams the gate and sits down, hugging his knees to his chest like a goddamn sulking child.

Cas gets close – close enough that all Dean needs to do is lean down and he could touch him, could ground himself in physical evidence that Cas is still here. _(Dean, that’s nothing for your to be upset over anymore. It’s finished. Lilith and Alistair are both dead and you’ve achieved what really mattered. We’ve been over this before. You had your family to worry about. If you acted out, they would have been harmed. If I acted out, you would have been harmed. But none of that matters because it’s_ done _now.)_

He can’t look at Cas, not without thinking about all the ways he’s _failed_ him. Dean doesn’t say anything, doesn’t _know_ what to say. He knows what he _wants_ to say, but those are things he shouldn’t ever let Cas hear. Especially not after everything they just went through to get him his freedom.

There are people waking up now. He can hear them thumping around in the ship. It’s not enough to get him to move. Benny isn’t going to start up the engines until he knows whether or not Cas is coming on board. Chances are he’s probably already looking for Dean. Which means that Dean should get up and go find him and tell him that Cas is staying in the water.

Yeah, that’s what he should do. Or was going to. Seems like a moot point now that Cas is trying to pull himself up onto the deck. Dean is on his knees and helping him up before he even realizes he’s doing it. Cas gives those painful hacking coughs, spitting out mouthfuls of water and that really can’t be any kind of pleasant. He scolds himself a thousand times over how his goddamn heart kicks up a few notches just because Cas reaches up and holds onto him, just because he curls his fingers in his goddamn shirt.

They settle back against the railing and Cas sits next to him, pressed all along his side and Dean is anything _but_ forced to put his arm around Cas’s shoulders. He fights to keep his fingers still, to keep from stroking cool, damp skin. Cas may be sitting closer than the average person would, but Cas has always had issues with personal space. That doesn’t mean he wants to keep up this _thing_ they had between them.

Cas sorta still has that weird – too familiar, too terrifying – heat pulsing through the kin-connection. It’s strained, barely there,  and Dean isn’t sure if that’s because he feels less of it now or if Cas isn’t sharing as much because he isn’t. That sends up a red flag and Dean drops the walls around his thoughts just enough to let out a bit of that only burning hit hiding behind his ribs like a caged animal that keeps insisting and shredding his insides.

As soon as that hits the kin-connection, Cas flips his tail over Dean’s legs. He almost holds his breath when Cas curls the end of his tail around his ankle. Cas puts his cheek to Dean’s shoulder and starts to purr. It’s enough to push away that nervous edge and all those doubts – at least for now. Dean just lets this moment sink in, greedy with taking as much from it as he possibly can before he starts talking again.

_(How’d you sleep? Did you find a safe spot?)_

He closes his eyes when a memory raises itself in the kin-connection. It’s a jagged, dark image and he can barely make out the jut of rock that forms a little cave beneath it. Cas keeps purring right on through it. _(It took me a while, but I did sleep. And you?)_

Hah. Right. _(Barely. I haven’t slept properly since our last dinner with Lilith. Too much to think about.)_ Cas wasn’t there. _(Not to mention that Bobby snores like a freight train.)_ Truth, but not always.

The confusion he gets at the colloquialism is so expected that Dean almost laughs. He explains and they talk about Cas’s family a bit. He presses closer, curling tighter around Dean’s leg and it is taking everything he has not to pull Cas into his lap, hold him tight and kiss him fucking _senseless_. And, baby back home help him, he wants to put his mouth to Cas’s body and suck mark after mark into all that pale skin. He’s so close to having all of Cas’s first and he wants them, he wants to say that they’re all his like the selfish bastard that he is.

They have their quiet little conversation until Benny shows up and they both look over their shoulders to look at him.

_(What is he wearing on his face?)_

_(Sunglasses. They make it easier to see when the sun is bright. So you’re not always squinting. Speaking of, you shouldn’t be out in the sun a whole lot. You’re pretty pale and I doubt you’ve gotten much sun in your lifetime.)_ He looks at Cas and the stretch of skin over Cas’s collarbone, down his chest and along his arms. He can’t resist not touching anymore and he rubs his thumb over against Cas’s shoulder. _(I don’t want you to get a burn or anything. Hell, even a tan probably wouldn’t be very healthy for you. And I’m sure as shit not rubbing all that sunscreen chemical crap on you. God knows what that would do to you.)_

Cas leans into the touch and something knotted behind Dean’s sternum loosens. _(You’re speaking in riddles again.)_

The talk with Benny goes well until Dean mentions that Cas is going to have to be put under for the chip to get taken out. Cas’s surge of fear is enough to stop Dean’s thought process, cutting it off at the knees. Cas accepts the explanation of _why_ but what he says makes that pain twist behind Dean’s ribs again. It’s worse when Cas pulls away, curls in on himself and hugs his tail to his chest.

_(I don’t want to sleep here!)_

Dean’s stomach drops somewhere down to where Cas was probably sleeping last night. Any smile he had before falls right off his face. _(I guess that answers what we’re doing at night.)_ He pushes the walls back up around his mind again and looks away. “We’re going to be dropping anchor every night, Benny. Cas doesn’t want to come on any further than this. Go for full as long as you can right now. I’ll come tell you when Cas is going back in the water.”

He barely hears Benny’s answer. Dean feels – Jesus, he feels _empty_. It hurts. Fuck, it feels like Cassie all over again. Cas growls and hugs his tail tighter, tucking it up to his chin. _Goddammit_.

“I’ll talk to Cas more.” Dean promises, not even looking at Benny. He’s not sure if he can keep his thoughts off his face.  “You’ll know before the end of the day. Promise.”

The anchor raises not long after Benny leaves. Dean accidentally soccer-moms Cas when the boat starts up, slapping a hand across his chest to keep him from falling forward when the boat starts up. He jerks his hand back the moment they’re steady. It’s nothing but the damn engines sounding between them and Dean can’t stand it.

 _(I don’t trust humans, Dean.)_ Cas says it so softly that Dean barely notices the thought in the kin-connection. He flinches from it, drawing his knees to his chest and crossing his arms over them.

_(I’m human.)_

The heat floods around Cas’s words again. Dean doesn’t know if he wants to sink into it or run from it now. _(You’re different.)_

Fuck, don’t say that. Don’t make him think that everything between them is the same as he wants it to be when it’s _not_. Cas doesn’t need Dean to comfort him anymore. He doesn’t need Dean. Just like no one else needs him and why the hell can’t Dean stop trying to convince Cas to stay?

_( - Sam can stand watch. I can be in the room with you and Jess will help Meg. She’s done a few dissections in her time, nothing big but it’s still more than Sammy or me.)_

_(I don’t like being forced to sleep. Or being stuck behind walls while I have my freedom.)_

_(I know, Cas, I know. It’ll only be for a little bit. As soon as you wake up and we make sure you’re okay, I’ll chuck you overboard again and you can swim to your heart’s content.)_ Dean shifts, accidentally bumping shoulders.

Cas immediately leans into him and Dean digs his fingers into his cast. _(Can you swim with me?)_

The walls fall enough for Cas to feel his disappointment. He’d give anything to be able to swim with him. To feel that indescribable _joy_ Cas gets out of it. _(I would if I could, but there’s no diving equipment on board. No air tanks or anything. I wouldn’t be able to go deep or stay under for more than a minute.)_

Dean shakes his head and sighs. They talk about the boat for a bit and Dean just keeps _trying_. It should be a lost cause, convincing Cas to stay on the boat. But if there’s one thing he’s got , it’s his determination and would he be able to forgive himself for giving up on Cas so easily? As soon as the sun gets high enough, Dean has them move to the shade and calls for Sam and the others to bring blankets so he can keep Cas out of the sun.

_(Dean.)_

He glances down as Cas drag-pushes himself over to the door to sit next to his leg. _(Just a minute, Cas.)_ Dean waves him off and keeps shouting down the hall. “We need the extra bodies to hold the blankets to give us some shade! If Bobby’s not up yet, then wake his damn ass!”

“Stop yer yelling, ya idjit. The whole damn boat is gonna be awake now.”

Cas starts tugging at the hem of his shorts and Dean looks down. _(Dean, I’ll go inside. You said we can be close to this door with Bobby and Sam guarding us.)_ Despite the conviction around the words, Dean can still feel the hesitation. The self-sacrifice. Cas doesn’t want to go on the boat, but he doesn’t want to trouble everyone and Dean doesn’t like the twist to his stomach.

“Put the brakes on that, guys! Just a second.” He squats so he can look Cas in the eye, letting concern flow along those near silent ribbons between them. _(You sure about that, Cas? If you’re not going to be comfortable with it –)_

 _(I trust you. And you trust Sam and Bobby. They have weapons and we will be closer to the outside than we were on Lilith’s boat. It is a different situation and I can be comfortable with it if I need to be. The easier it is for this to happen, the sooner it will be finished.)_ Cas nods like that’s the final say on it and he leans forward to down the hall. _(Is the nearest door already someone else’s room?)_

Why the hell does that make him want to smile? No, no, his hand should _not_ be touching Cas’s head-fin right now. It should be on his knee where it was a few seconds ago and it should _not_ be tracing the black spines.

_(Yeah. We’ll commandeer it for the time being. If need be, I can ask Benny if we can switch bunks and take that one. But I should really only do that if you want to be on here afterward too. I know you said that you want to spend as much time in the sea as you can, but we really will get you home faster if we can keep going throughout the night.)_

It’s the first real touch they’ve had since last night and Cas didn’t initiate it. Again. How the hell is he supposed to know if Cas wants to keep – keep – all _this_ if Cas doesn’t do anything? If he wanted to believe it, Dean might think that Cas leaning into his hand and the _relief_ in the kin-connection was the sign he wants but he needs Cas to _say it_.

_(I’ll think about it. For now, let’s get the x-rays over with. I dislike those as much as I do everything else.)_

The thing about Dean is, he’s always pushed the envelope. He’s always tripped along the boundaries and not much can change that. Not even this. Dean leans forward and presses a kiss to Cas’s forehead. Nothing too much – hell, it could even be seen as just being overly affectionate with a friend if need be.

_(I know you do. It’ll just be a few minutes getting the room set up and moving the equipment. Do you mind waiting out here?)_

_(Will you be going far?)_ The little pulse of anxiety in those words shouldn’t make goddamn butterflies flutter up a storm in his stomach.

_(Just down the hall. If you sit here, you’ll be able to see me the whole time.)_

Cas looks down the hall and then back up at Dean, sitting straighter too. _(If you kiss me properly, then yes, I will wait here.)_

Glory fucking hallelujah! It’s unexpected and fucking _awesome_. He moves his hand to Cas’s neck and looks at his lips. Cas is practically radiating eagerness and it’s doing all sorts of things to Dean’s insides. Things that fucking _terrify_ him.

 _(You still want to –)_ Dean catches himself, stops that thought. Cas asked for it. Cas wants this. Cas wants _him_. He licks his lips and looks up again meeting those baby blues that’ve overtaken every fucking fantasy he’s thought of since day one.

The walls around his head slip a little more and Dean doesn’t even know, doesn’t even fucking _care_ about what gets through. He kisses Cas firmly – no pansy little touches here – and _fuck_. Cas opens under his tongue and he even holds the back of his head, fingers digging into his shoulder and carding through his hair and Dean _smiles_. He doesn’t let Cas pull away when Jess interrupts. Hell, he even waves her off. Nothing is stopping him from drawing those little surprised noises from Cas, from sinking into this and clearing out every goddamn doubt he had in his head.

He’s not letting anything stop him from feeling _happy_.


	31. Good Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 30.**

To date, Dean can't think of waking up to anything better than Cas licking and kissing across his chest, one hand working over his stomach and the other actually in his pants and squeezing his ass. No, this is definitely the best thing anyone has woken up to in the history of ever. He's wide awake the moment Cas's tongue slides over his nipple and he stops to worry at it lightly with this teeth, sending a series of really pleasant chills skipping down Dean's spine.

Dean traces his hand down Cas's back and up his arm – a lazy, sleepy touch until he can figure out exactly what's going to be happen now. He has a sneaking suspicion of where this is headed, but he's not going to leap to any conclusions when nothing with Cas has ever turned out how he's expected it to.

“Cas. Gotta say, this is one of the nicest ways I've been woken up recently.” It's kind of an applause worthy thing that he doesn't stumble over any of those words while Cas is still going to town on any skin he can reach with his mouth.

The kin-connection is just as open as it was when he went to sleep and Cas's thoughts are hazy as he leaves a wet trail of kisses up Dean's chest until he can skip the edge of his shirt and get straight to his mouth. _(If that door locks, you should do that.)_

Fucking Christ, if this is some cruel joke he might actually break down and cry. So far, it looks legit and Dean doesn't hold back from kissing Cas, pushing up and into the kiss until Cas is pinned underneath him. Cas opens the flood gates and so much _heat_ pours into the kin-connection. It's two different burns – one that settles in his chest to pulse in time with his heart and another that finds a home in his gut and pumps sparks into his bones.

Cas is making all sorts of little noises around the kiss, pretty much humming while he pulls Dean's shirts up his back. They're starting to bunch under his armpits and it's getting pretty damn uncomfortable. He gets his knees under him, straddling Cas's hips while he pulls both shirts over his head. Cas's tail keeps moving, twisting under the blanket where it's still covered and pushing his hips up in lazily little rolls that Dean is maybe eighty-nine percent certain that Cas isn't aware he's doing.

When he swoops back in for more kisses – Cas's mouth has gotta be more addicting than any alcohol or narcotic – he slides his hands over Cas's jaw. Touching Cas is just as addicting. Every time he touches him, no matter where it is, Dean is reminded that he's not touching something human – the scales, the fins, the little smooth patches where his glow pattern is that doesn't feel all that different from the rest of his skin unless you're looking for it. There's no closing he's eyes and thinking about someone else. It's Cas and only Cas and that's pretty fucking awesome.

 _(The door, Dean.)_ The reminder gets shoved into the kin-connection like Cas is having trouble remembering too, following the kisses whenever Dean pulls away for a kiss.

Yeah, Dean knows where this is going. But that doesn't mean he's not going to tease Cas a little for waking up like a horny rabbit. He gets his fingers behind Cas's head-fins and brushes them through his hair gentle while he kisses him slow and sweet. _(You sure are focused on that door.)_

_(I don't want to be interrupted.)_

Chills race over Dean's ribs, running hot-cold under his skin as goosebumps follow behind Cas's hands as they trace over his back. _(And what don't you want interrupted, I wonder?)_ This is the last he's going to push right now. Dean knows exactly what's happening now and he's firmly buckling down on any of that nervous paranoia that always worries at the back of his mind whenever he's about to have sober sex with someone new – which, truthfully – hasn't happened a whole lot in his life.

It doesn’t really help that this is going to be Cas’s first time. Sure, they’ve done a bunch of other stuff together and that’s all well and good. But this is it. Full on sex. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal to him, but it is. Dean may not have given a shit about his own virginity, but Cas has been special since day one and Dean wants everything to be perfect. And he’ll give him that as best he can with what he’s got.

Cas makes a small sound against his mouth and frustration runs along the edges of the ribbons of the kin-connection. Memories flash into his mind and Dean nearly loses the ability to breath. There's the memory of when he promised that he'd cover Cas in hickeys the moment that they get away from Lilith. That's not what nearly knocks him for a loop. No, it's a memory of something he's never seen – wispy and hot. Hands clutching whatever they can grip, bodies moving in a dance he's damn familiar with. It doesn't take a leap to realize that it's a dream Cas had. No wonder he woke Dean up the way he did.

He groans and sinks back into Cas, kissing him hard and pulling out a few tricks with his tongue that he knows always leaves Cas panting. Dean lets Cas catch his breath by turning his attention to his throat. If Cas wants hickeys, he can give him hickeys. He can leave as many marks as Cas wants to show everyone that he belongs to him – and that thought never fails to send heat burning through his veins. It gets worse when Cas starts trying to open his pants, fumbling at the button and making it really hard for Dean to concentrate on finding where he's going to leave his marks. And the only thing that Cas's little gasping noises are helping is Dean's boner, already uncomfortably hard in his jeans.

As soon as the pants are open, Cas starts dragging his fingers over the front of his jeans. He's taking way too much enjoyment out of distracting him from putting hickeys in the same places they used to be. Cas heals fast enough that the hickeys are gone within a few days – where Dean takes a week or more. Not that Cas has really given him a chance to let the hickeys fade.

There are a million different _wants_ rushing through the kin-connection and half of them Dean doesn't understand. Cas isn't translating most of them when he thinks in his native language. That's okay. If he wants something, Cas isn't all that afraid of asking Dean for it. Right now, he seems happy enough to let Dean suck a red mark into the dip of his collarbone.

That doesn't last long. He pulls Dean up to kiss him hard enough that Dean's lips sting after from the drag of teeth over them. It just makes it harder to keep himself from rutting against Cas's stomach. Especially when Cas's tongue flicks out to lick at his bottom lip lightly before he actually sucks on it, coaxing Dean into another kiss that he's pretty sure is magically converting his blood to lava.

Cas's fingers drag through his hair and down his back, nails raking over skin. They're getting longer and Dean's pretty sure they're going to be getting claw-ish within another week or so. Or Cas maybe has to file them that way? Yeah, no, those aren’t important thoughts right now. They go right out the window when Cas shoves his hands down the back of Dean's jeans again. He squeezes once and Dean can feel the smile against his mouth before Cas starts rocking their hips together.

“Door.” Cas hisses between kisses. “Want Dean. Lock door.”

“Shit, _fuck_.” Dean mutters, trying to catch his breath. “God-fucking- _dammit_.”

Yes. God, yes. He would love to lock the door and make sure no one comes to cock block them again this time. But at the same time there is no fucking way that he wants to pull away from Cas right now. It is literally the last thing he wants to do and it's probably more trouble than it's worth to try and carry Cas with him the few feet to the door from the bed.

Fuck. _Fuck_. He punches the pillow before he pulls away, drawing all his will power to keep him from turning around and diving back under the blanket with Cas the moment he gets his feet on the floor. Cas's satisfaction and amusement fill the kin-connection, and Dean is well aware of how he's watching him while he stumbles with dropping his pants and boxers en route to the door.

 _(Can you turn off the lights too?)_ Cas asks hesitantly when he sits up, curling his tail under him.

Dean locks the door and turns back, kicking his pants away. _(I won't be able to see you if I do that.)_

When he doesn't meet Dean's eyes, instead looking down at his lap and tracing the dotted blue pattern on his tail, Dean knows something’s up. _(You'll be able to see just fine. But you don't have to if you don't want to.)_

It doesn't take a genius to know what Cas wants. He maybe be hiding it from the kin-connection, but Dean thinks he knows Cas well enough now to understand without Cas having to actually say it. Now that he's not ridiculously distracted by Cas's skin and scales and general _Cas-ness_ , it's easier for Dean to remember all the other things that they're going to need for this. Like lube and condoms. Those are going to be very important. And both of those things are in his guitar case.

He gets those and passes them to Cas. Instead of turning off the light, because he'd really like to have something he can see by, Dean pulls the bed curtain out from its little hidey-hole in the wall at the base of the bed. Dean crawls onto the bed and pulls the curtain along the near-hidden track to meet the other wall. His eyes don't even get a chance to adjust to the sudden lack of light. The moment the rest of the room is shut out, Cas starts glowing like a deep-sea light bulb again. He's practically radiating happiness and when he looks up at Dean from running a hand over his tail, there's a possessive edge to his eyes that cuts straight through him to hit his libido hard.

Oh Jesus, if they don't get started right the fuck now, one or both of them is going to end up coming before any actual sex happens. Again. Cas uses the end of his tail and the glowing pattern on the pliable caudal fins like a lamp, holding it over Dean's hands to make it easier to see the condoms while he rips one open and rolls it over his own dick. Normally he'd give a few strokes just to get a little relief before the start on the prep, but Cas leans into his side and does it for him – accepting the little hints and urgings Dean gives him in the kin-connection.

That takes the edge off a little. It's not enough to get him off, but at least now he's not going untouched. Which is Cas's situation right now. _(How comes you're not out yet?)_ Dean reaches over and manages to rub his palm over Cas's sheath once before his hand is slapped away.

 _(You're not going to touch me until you're ready.)_ Cas slides around on the bed until he's curled between Dean's legs, leaning forward on his hands to kiss him slow and lingering. _(It's been almost three days since I got to touch you, since I got to taste you. Lilith kept us from our previous plans and she's not here now.)_ He pulls back just enough to meet his eyes. _(Dean, I want you.)_

He can work with that. Dean drags him down with him when he lays back against the pillow. “Yeah? How do you want me, Cas? Why don't you tell me more about that dream of yours.”

Dean isn't all that disappointed that Cas doesn't remember much else from the dream. It's hard to be disappointed about anything when Cas is kissing his neck and touching him everywhere, lips following his hands. He's saying things that – for Cas – are pretty dirty and they're filled with that heat Dean absolutely refuses to name. Cas's tail curls around his legs as he shimmies lower and lower while one of his hands is on the back of his thigh goes higher and higher before it just _stops_.

 _(Please, Dean. May I?)_ He folds his head-fins flat against the side of his head when he asks that.

He's not entirely sure what that might mean, but he knows Cas is just trying to make him comfortable or something. Yeah, something. Dean is getting to the point where he's beyond words. Now it's just grunts and groans and spreading his legs to give Cas the room he needs to prep him. Cas leans back down and starts kissing his way along his stomach, murmuring little happy noises into his skin. He's groping across the bed with one hand, probably for the lube that's actually on Dean's other side.

“Looking for this?” Dean wiggles the bottle at him after tapping it against the top of his head.

Cas sits back on his tail and Dean lifts his legs, grabbing himself behind the knees and pulling them to his chest. It's a bit of an embarrassing position, but it's worth it when Cas nearly drops the bottle and all of his fins flare wide. He licks his lips and swallows loud enough for Dean to hear it.  For a moment, he half thinks Cas might actually try rimming him – but then there's cold fingers covered in cold lube touching him and he twitches, hissing air between his teeth.

Dean can't help giving directions through the kin-connection while Cas rubs the pad of one of his fingers over his hole. It still feels a little weird. Normally he'd let his partner do what they want, maybe tell them if they do something he doesn't like and keeping a mental commentary the whole time. But with Cas and the kin-connection, he can give him the commentary. He can guide Cas without really having to think about it and Cas is almost too eager to follow the instructions.

They haven't really done this a whole lot for Dean to be really used to having fingers in him – but the stretch feels good and Cas needs less and less instructions every time. The only thing he really needs guiding in is knowing when to add another finger. He only needs to be told once where Dean's prostate is and then he sets a little rhythm, brushing against that awesome little bundle of nerves every other push of his fingers.

Oh Jesus and that webbing between his fingers. The fucking webbing. It rubs against that sensitive ring of muscles and Dean doesn't even know what the hell he could compare it to. It's just an extra little oomph to getting finger fucked and all he needs is Cas's mouth on his dick for this to be perfect. Better yet, Cas should stop with the fingers and get right to actually fucking him. Yeah, yeah, that sounds like a good plan. Fuck yes, there is no better plan than that one.

He shoves Cas's hand away, scrabbling to find the other condom to get it on Cas. With the curtain closed, the air is almost stifling and the smell of sex is filling it. Dean loves it, really. Maybe he's a little too enthusiastic, but it's been a long time since he's had a good fucking and he's kind of wanted to ride Cas since before he even saw his dick. Which – _Jesus Christ_. Dean isn't exactly a size queen, but _holy shit_. Whatever God crafted fin-kin penises deserves all the tributes possible and if that's Cas's 'Mother-sea' then Dean might just be converted after this.

Cas makes a needy little noise, watching closely when Dean checks just how prepared he is. He feels loose enough and dear Gods of all things pastry, he is _ready_. He's been ready since that day Cas used his tail to fuck him and even though that was fucking awesome, it wasn't exactly what he wanted.

_(Are you ready?)_

“Yeah.” Dean tries and fails to keep his breathing steady as Cas's hands touch and go from his thighs. “How do you want to do it, Cas?”

 _(I want to see you.)_ Cas leans over him and kisses him gently. _(All of you. Please, Dean.)_

It takes an attempted interruption from Sam and a little manoeuvring around on the bed before Dean is kneeling over Cas's stomach now. With the way Cas's dick is curved, it'll be easier for him here. Especially since he keeps hitting his fucking head on Bobby's bed if he tries to sit right over it. He's never been so thankful for flexibility when Cas scoots down the bed a little and folds his tail up along Dean's back, hooking the end over his shoulder. Cas keeps running his hands up and down Dean's arms, moving where he's told to until they're both positioned just right.

Cas holds his breath when Dean reaches between them to guide his dick so it'll actually go in. This is about as far as they got last time and Dean begs whoever is bothering to listen that Cas doesn't come too soon again. The moment he starts bearing down, Cas gives a little cry. Dean doesn't stop, he doesn't wait to see if Cas came, he keeps going until he feels the head push in. They both suck in a little breath right then. Cas looks so surprised – his eyes wide, his head-fins flared out, spines trembling, and his lips parted. His hands are on Dean's sides now, fingers digging in almost painfully as he holds on.

Dean fills the kin-connection with almost silent reminders that Cas shouldn't move until he's ready. Cas knows he's not supposed to, but it's really easy to lose yourself in this – especially when it's your first time. But Cas isn't moving. He's just staring without seeing and Dean would be amused if he wasn't sinking down another inch and practically reeling from the feeling. That line of bumps along Cas's cock are – _fuck_ , they catch against his rim when he moves down and it's fucking glorious.

Cas has, without a doubt, ruined him for all other dicks. Forever.

With his elbows digging into the pillow on either side of Cas’s head and his cheek brushing against one of his head-fins, Dean starts rocking. It’s a steady pace and he takes a little more every time he pushes back. Cas’s hands slide up to his back, hands framing his shoulder blades. They’re shaking and the end of Cas’s tail keeps twitching hard against the side of his neck.

“Just – just wait, Cas –” He hisses slightly, sinking another little bit and wincing against the burn. It hurts, but it’s just this side of feeling good.

Dean lifts his head to kiss him. It’s meant to be calming, to help Cas unwind before he gets to start moving. But the kin-connection only gets hotter, steaming under the _wantpleasewantDeanwant_ Cas keeps filling it with. It’s like he’s aching for it and that only makes the fire burning in Dean blaze bigger. Cas is like this because of him. It’s his first time and Dean gets to have it, Dean gets to have _him_.

It takes a little longer for Dean to get used to Cas’s size. He can’t take him all the way, not without a hell of a lot more prep, but this – holy shit, this is good. Cas gasps into the next kiss, arching up into it when Dean doesn’t hold back. It’s the first time Cas has actually _moved_ and it catches him by surprise. Yeah, he’s ready. Fuck, he’s more than ready.

He pulls out all the stops until Cas actually groans and slides his hands to the small of Dean’s back, pushing them under his tail. _(Dean – I want to – please let me –)_

“Yeah – okay, yeah. Go slow. Stop if I tell you to.”

There’s a surge of that warmth and a thick pulse of joy as Cas slips a little lower down the bed. His hands moved to Dean’s hips before he pulls out a little. Dean’s used to it now, but he’s not the one that’s moving. It shouldn’t feel different with Cas being the one who pushes in – instead of Dean rocking back – but it is and Dean can’t stop the sounds and whispered praises. He’s always been on the loud side when it comes to sex and this isn’t going to be any different, whether there are people in the other rooms or not. They’ll clear out soon enough if they’re annoyed by it.

Everything’s going great and that coil of heat in Dean’s belly keeps getting tighter with every passing minute – until Cas’s grip on his hips goes too tight and he stops everything. For one brief second Dean thinks Cas came to early, but he’s not showing any of the other signs that Dean has memorized. He didn’t come, he’s actually _stopping_. In the middle of – mother of fuck, _why?_

Dean starts pushing at his hands, trying to get them to let go so he can start moving again. “Fuck – Cas, what are – why did you – _goddammit –_ ” This isn’t fair. It was so good and why the hell is he stopping?

 _(Too soon, it’s too soon.)_ Cas is panting, eyes closed and head back. _(I don’t want it to end yet.)_

“Are you fucking kidding me? Cas, I haven’t came since the last time we touched. I’m not even touching myself _now_ and you want to take a little break? Are you _trying_ to kill me?”

_(Of course not.)_

With Cas holding his hips, it’s a little hard to sit up enough to get his hands on his face to make him look at him. “It’s okay if you come first. It’s okay if I come first. It doesn’t matter either way, just _don’t stop_ and _keep fucking me_.”

That may be a little harsh, since Dean completely understands him. There’s a part of him that’s a little worried that this is it. They’ll do this and then Cas will be done with him, or this is the one and only time they do it. He’s got his doubts on both those, but they’re still there, hidden away in the back of his head.

Cas bites his lip, eyes closing again but not before Dean catches the panicked look behind them. He makes a little noise, almost wounded and Dean hates it. He hates it as much as the fears that Cas lets into the kin-connection. They’re the same ones that Dean has and he can’t help but think if there’s something that he’s done to make Cas feel that way.

“But there’s always later, Cas.” He murmurs, smiling softly when Cas looks at him again. “We can do this again and again until we get you home.” He starts rocking the moment Cas’s hands loosen. “It’s the first time, Cas, not the last.”

It kills him to know that there will be a last. There’s a countdown ticking in the background, like there’s always been since they ended up like this and Dean’s trying to ignore it. He can’t think about that right now, now when Cas is starting to move again and his hands are in his hair and pulling him down for a breathless kiss.

Dean turns off his brain. Anything that isn’t completely about Cas right now isn’t worth the brain power. This is about _them_ – not about countdowns or goodbyes or any of the other bullshit that keeps hovering over them like storm clouds. This is about them and that too hot warmth he’s drowning in. 


	32. Wanting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 30.**

They did it. They actually fucking _did it_. Holy shit. Yeah, that was definitely better than all the little fantasies he’s had over the last few weeks. Those didn’t even hold a candle to that absolutely _stunned_ look Cas had when Dean had started moving – wide eyes that weren’t even seeing anything, slack mouth, and if the kin-connection could burn him, Dean’s pretty sure all that _warmth_ would’ve charred him to a crisp.

All that feeling that Cas has for him should scare him, but it really doesn’t. Fuck, Dean is even _returning_ it. More and more of it getting around the walls and soaking into the kin-connection every time he even so much as _looks_ at Cas. It’s barely been a month and Cas has dug himself so deep into him that Dean is fucking terrified of what’s coming. He’s got Cas for a week and a half at most before that’s it. After that Cas is going back where he belongs and the lighthouse in his head is going to be gone for good and he really shouldn’t think about that right now. It’s fucking with his post orgasmic glow and if he’s not careful, Cas is going to notice.

He’s already not letting Dean get up to put on some clothes and get the door open to air out the room. Even the threat of Bobby complaining doesn’t woo Cas into untangling from around him. Cas just pulls the blanket up and he would’ve pulled it right over their heads if Dean hadn’t stopped him. He’s like a lizard, sucking up all the heat that he can. It’s adorable as hell and Dean really shouldn’t be keeping a mental list of all the things that Cas does that he’s going to miss because it’s just _depressing_.

But seriously, he needs to do something about the room before someone gets back and there’s his post-sex ritual he needs to complete. A shower being one of them. “What if I told you I have to go to the bathroom?” He smiles against Cas’s forehead as Cas curls in tighter. “Would you let me up then?”

Cas huffs and his nails dig into his side. _(You’d be lying if you did.)_

True, but he does know what _isn’t_ a lie. “Not if I said I should probably take another shower. I had one this morning, but then you went and made me all sweaty and stuff.” Damn, he should’ve used Jess’s phone to record that too. “Anyone who looks at me now is going to know exactly what we did.”

 _(Good.)_ Cas shifts up enough to press a kiss to the hickey in the middle of Dean's throat.

It sends a little shiver down his spine and his brain immediately starts wondering about fin-kin refractory periods. It’ll be another little bit before he can get going again, but if Cas wants another go then there’s plenty more that they can do. Either way, Cas being a possessive little shit gets added to the list and Dean can’t help but laugh and rub at the space behind his head-fins. It earns him a little purr and Cas loosens up against him.

_(Well as much as you might enjoy this, the congealed sweat doesn’t feel all that awesome.)_

Another shiver trips down his back when Cas’s tongue moves over the scabs on his shoulder and he rubs his cheek against him. _(I don’t want you to go yet.)_

Yeah, Dean can see how that would be a problem. Cas doesn’t like the boat and they had to move to the room closest to the door just so he’d be willing to come on this far. How he managed to sleep half the day with that paranoia about all the people and everything is beyond Dean, but he’s grateful for it.

Without Cas and the kin-connection being nearby, Dean can’t sleep right. He’s not sure _when_ that started happening, but when his head is empty and it’s just him in there and in the bed, it doesn’t work. He’s never liked sleeping alone and that’s probably why he slept around so much before. It’s nice to have a warm body next to you, even though Cas is technically a cool body. But that’s fine, he’s cuddly and shit and Dean likes it - more than he’s willing to admit, actually.

The sweat is starting to make him feel itchy and Dean wants a shower, badly. If Cas doesn’t want to let him go, he should come with him. Maybe he’ll be okay about going further onto the boat if Dean is with him. _(You could always join me. It won’t be quite the same as shared showers that I’ve had before, but I bet it could be just as fun.)_

He imagines a few scenarios – ones with him pinning Cas up against the wall of the shower to keep him in place while Cas’s tail curls around his legs and they frot into next week, or there’s the other one he’s thought about - Cas sitting on the floor of the shower with Dean rocking in his lap. That’s a good one and he can feel that familiar heat starting to pool in his gut again. The moment that thought hits the kin-connection, Cas’s dorsal fins spread sharply and actually hit the wall. Dean snorts and tries to muffle his laugh when Cas hisses.

It doesn’t take much more convincing to get Cas to let him up. He does hide his face in the pillow and pull the blanket over his head when Dean reaches for the curtain. He’s got a thing about bright lights and Dean totally understands that, squinting against the fluorescents as he swings his legs off the bed, stands, and stretches with the most satisfying spine-pops in pretty much ever.

A subtle appreciation twists along the ribbons in the kin-connection and Dean turns around, looking for where he kicked his pants to, and catches Cas watching him from under the blanket. He grins at him and grabs his shirt from where it landed on Sam’s bed. When he bends over to pick up his pants, he winces at the ache in his hips. Shit, it’s been a while since he bottomed, and they weren’t even all that rough.

 _(Are you in pain?)_ Cas’s concern is sharp in the kin-connection, worry twisting with the question. He sits up quickly, almost hitting his head on Bobby’s bed. _(Did I hurt you?)_

Crap. He’d been hoping that Cas wouldn’t see that. Dean sits on the edge of the bed and the ache gets a little worse sitting directly like that. It gets another wince out of him and he tries to hide it but the growing concern in the kin-connection tells him he clearly didn’t.

He reaches out to push his hand through Cas’s hair – he doesn’t care that it’s salt rough and messy, he fucking loves Cas’s hair – and kisses him on the cheek. _(Don’t worry. I’m just a little sore – it usually always happens after a good session like that.)_ Not to mention it’s been nearly a decade since the last time he was on the receiving end. _(Hell, my legs ache a little too. Next time, I get to be on my back.)_

That makes the gears change in Cas’s head faster than Dean’s ever seen for him. One second he’s concerned and the next it’s _heat_ and he’s pulling Dean in for a proper mouth-to-mouth, teeth-catching-a-lip kiss. _(When will be the next time?)_ He slides closer, pressing into Dean’s side. _(Are the others always going to be out of this room? Would we be able to get our own? How long will you be sore? Will you be too sore for the next time?)_

Sweet Jesus. Don’t tell him that sex is the new kissing for Cas. When they first started that he wanted kisses as often as he could get them. Though… Dean can remember being the same when his cherry was freshly popped too.

All the questions Cas asks in rapid fire mode just make him laugh and he pushes Cas away when he stands. “Whoa, cowboy, slow down. I feel like I’ve created a monster.”

Hurt edges Cas’s words and his frown. _(I’m not a monster.)_

“I know you’re not. It’s just an expression, Cas.” Dean focuses on soothing that hurt edge to Cas’s mind. “And to answer all your questions, I’ll be fine soon enough. We can lock the door to keep the others out and we’ll just ignore whatever complaints they’ve got.” He grins up at him while pulling on his shoes. Cas is watching him closely and Dean has to fight the urge to pull off all his clothes again and climb back into the bed.

Fuck what the others are going to say about it. They all get to stay with each other or stay with the ones they want. They don’t have a time limit counting down to when they're just going to be alone again. Why shouldn’t Dean take every chance that he has to be with Cas, sex and all? He grabs at the curling sadness he can feel rising in his chest and he pulls it back from the kin-connection, kicking it back behind the walls that keep Cas from feeling all the shit Dean shouldn’t let him see.

“I doubt we’ll be able to get our own room, since the boat is pretty full. But if you really want one, I could check for you. Benny might be able to do some shuffling. Everyone just wants to make you as comfortable as possible, so they might do it.” He shrugs and pulls the door open, stopping to get his kit. “I’m going to take a quick shower. You want to join me?”

Cas hasn’t taken his eyes off him and Dean knows it. There’s that heat still in the kin-connection and in Cas’s eyes and Dean _really_ wants to jump him. _(That would be the opposite of ‘quick’ wouldn’t it?)_

He doesn’t even realize he’s scratching at the cast while he privately thinks about all the different ways they could do it in the cramped space of the bed – and all the different places on the boat that they could try and get away with it. _(Yeah, it probably would be. But I don’t want to leave you in here alone. I know you don’t want that either.)_ Dean adds when a small burst of panic trips into his head. _(If you’d prefer to go back in the ocean, I can take you outside instead.)_ It’ll nearly kill him to have to put Cas overboard again, but at least this time there won’t be the fear that Cas will go deep and not come back.

The blanket moves with Cas’s tail, bunching up as he curls it closer to himself and frowns up at Dean. _(I want to stay with you.)_

Wow, who knew six words could make his heart go from zero to sixty in no time flat? Of course Cas doesn’t mean that like Dean _really fucking wishes_ he does. Cas only means right now. He doesn’t mean – No. Dean wipes that thought and everything in his head clean. It doesn’t do him any damn good to think about Cas staying with him or vice versa. He should be spending the next week and a half getting as much distance between them as he freaking can so it won’t hurt when he finally has to say goodbye.

Cas makes a little noise, soft and curious and there’s worry whispering along the edges of the kin-connection. Dean mentally shakes himself out of the funk, shoving it out of his head. Cas is still here and after what they just did, if he tries to push him away it’s going to hurt him and that’s the last fucking thing Dean ever wants to do.

 _(You want to stay with me, but I know you don’t want to go further onto the boat and I’m not going to take you anywhere you’re not comfortable with.)_ He forces himself to relax, shoving a hand through his hair and trying not to look at Cas – just in case his face might show something it shouldn’t be showing. _(I could send someone else in here to keep you company. Bobby, Jess, or Sam. They’ll probably want to keep the door open for a while.)_

He’s not looking, but he can hear the bed and the blankets shuffling as Cas moves around. There’s something unhappy creeping through Cas’s thoughts and Dean hates himself for being the one who put it there – especially after how good things were just a few minutes ago.

_(How far in are the showers?)_

Dean looks. Is he asking because he wants to come with him? _(Down the hall. They’re mid-ship. It’s a single stall room, so we’ll be alone. If we keep our hands to ourselves, then we’ll be out before you know it.)_ And if they don’t – well, then that’ll just be a happy accident.

Cas leans down and gets his dagger from under the bed. _(I’ll come with you.)_

 _(You gonna shank anyone who gets to close?)_ He raises an eyebrow at the knife.

 _(While you are showering, I am going to shave.)_ Cas gestures at his face and holds his arms out to him.

Dean snorts and picks him up, ignoring the twinge in his lower back as Cas’s tail curls around his waist. _(I still have my razor, you know.)_

He can feel the butt of the dagger against his back while Cas gets a better hold on him. _(I am aware. But I’ve been using this since I first started growing facial hair. I can shave without a mirror and without the foam. And we don’t have to waste time washing my scales or fans. I can do those in the deep.)_

That makes Dean miss a step on his way out the door and turns everything in his head into a downward dive again. The deeps are where he can’t go. He can’t even keep the kin-connection with Cas when he goes that far and who knows what the hell could happen to him while he’s down there. Every moment that Cas is in the ocean is less time for them to be together and Dean hates that he wants to keep Cas from that even just a tiny bit.

 _(When will that be?)_ When is he going to have to cut the kin-connection and worry if something is going to attack Cas down there or if he’s going to change his mind and go home alone. It’ll probably be tonight. Cas doesn’t want to stay on the boat any longer than he has to and he’s already been on it longer than he wanted to.

 _(I don’t know. The next time I have the opportunity, I suppose.)_ He gives the closest thing to a mental shrug Dean's ever felt as Cas presses a kiss to his temple.

Well what the hell is that supposed to mean? The whole point of being here now, after getting their asses off Lilith’s boat, was to get Cas his freedom. He has the opportunity to go wherever he wants, whenever he wants. He doesn’t need anyone’s permission. Hell, he doesn’t even need to ask.

Dean carries Cas into the bathroom with the open door, putting him on the sink and forcing himself not to snort another laugh when Cas’s ass – or the part that _would_ be his ass if it wasn’t, y’know, a tail – practically ends up in the sink. Cas checks the room out while Dean closes the door and starts undressing.

_(Why does the chair have a hole in it? That can’t be very comfortable.)_

There is nothing in the world that could stop him from laughing at that. _(It’s a toilet. That’s where we take a piss or shit and we flush it away so we don’t have to look at it. I’m probably going to want to do that soon. You’re either going to have to stay in the shower or sit outside because I’m not doing that where you can watch. It’s really not my thing.)_

Cas crinkles his nose at him. _(You’re a very strange species.)_

Yeah, like he didn’t hide his output in a bucket when no one was looking. Dean just grins at him and shrugs. _(Yeah, we kinda are.)_ Enough of that. There’s that thing about going to the deeps that’s bugging him and he needs to ask now before he goes crazy.

Dean kicks his boots off, locks the door, and plants himself right in front of Cas, hands on either sides of his hips and cornering him on the counter. _(What you said – that you’ll go deep when you have the ‘opportunity’. What did you mean by that?)_ Point blank. Can’t get any franker than that.

But Cas just tilts his head and confusion fills the kin-connection. _(It means exactly what I said. Was there something you didn’t understand about that?)_

For fuck’s sake. _(Yes, Cas, there is. I want to know_ when _that’s going to be.)_ Before he starts thinking Cas is going to want to spend the last of their time together here on the boat.

 _(I don’t know.)_ Cas's dagger clinks on the counter when he puts it down and then his hands are in Dean's hair, fingers and webbing combing through it until they find the back of his neck and can pull him forward. _(I want to stay with you, Dean. I want to stay with you while we’re together. I don’t like being away from the sea when I have my freedom, but I hate being away from you more than that. Especially when we have so little time left.)_

Oh.

Dean’s so relieved he doesn’t even care about the desperate noise he makes before he kisses Cas or that it’s soft and sweet instead of hard and messy like it should be, like how he wants to hold Cas tight against him and never let him go. He’s not alone in this. They’re on the same fucking page and that just makes that heat in his chest expand, pushing through all the cracks in him to spill out into the kin-connection where Cas soaks it up like a sponge. And he gives it back double. Where Dean is still holding back from letting it all out – too many reasons, too many fucking fears – Cas doesn’t hide any of it.

 _Fuck_. How is he supposed to give all of this – Cas, the heat, the whole feeling like he’s not fucking _alone_ – how is he supposed to give it all up in less than two weeks? 


	33. Ask Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 32.**

Dean rubs his hand over Cas’s back the same way he used to when Sam was a kid and scared about having to throw up when he was sick. Cas is so uneasy about being put under like this and Dean is doing his best to comfort him physically and through the kin-connection.   _(I’m going to be right here the whole time, Cas. Straight through until you wake up. Just keep breathing.)_

 _(Why would I stop?)_ Cas asks it like that’s the most unbelievable thing ever and it’s a good distraction for him. Dean squeezes Cas’s hand tight, hoping that it helps to distract him while Meg puts the needle in and injects the tranquilizer mix.

He snorts when he laughs and it gets a pulse of amusement from Cas. _(It’s what you say to help someone calm down. But that’s a little moot since Meg just hit the plunger. You’re going to be out in a moment.)_

Cas doesn’t even have the chance to be surprised over that. Dean can feel how he’s slipping from the kin-connection, slipping from consciousness entirely. It’s the most cowardly thing he’ll probably ever do, but Dean sees his chance right then and there as Cas is falling into darkness, before the kin-connection is completely severed by the tranquilizer.

It’s been in his head all day, thinking about what Cas had said – had felt – early this morning. There’d been so much of that burning heat – the one that fills all the little cracks in him, fills his chest and makes him feel like he can’t breathe, like he’s so full he’s going to fucking _explode_ if he doesn’t find a way to let it out somehow. It was wrapped with so much _want_ and the sleepy sensation of _stay_.

Cas wants to ask him to stay.

He doesn’t want to give this up any more than Dean does and that’s just awesome. Dean’s spent the whole day thinking about it. He thought about how he hasn’t been this happy since Cassie. He thought about how he can’t even remember the last time he even _thought_ about having a drink, let alone actually had one. His head always used to be so full of shadows, so fucking _empty_ with just him in it and now it’s – it’s just _not_.

Dean knows it’s impulsive – _reckless_ , even. But is it so bad that he wants to keep that happiness? That he doesn’t want to go back to the lonely dark?  If Cas gives him that, why shouldn’t he keep him? Why should he _stay_?

He can feel the ribbons of the kin-connection stretching tight. Any moment now they’re going to snap and they just _can’t_ yet. Because he wants to stay. He wants Cas to ask him and as terrifying as it is to be the one to ask it, he wants Cas to take that leap. If Cas asks him, then Dean can say ‘yes’. Dean can give him the answer that Cas wants to hear just as much as he wants to give it.

He runs a hand through Cas’s hair and squeezes his hand. He gets a weak squeeze back, but Cas’s hand is going slack in his and all his fins are drooping. The fans along his tail aren’t even rustling anymore. It’s cowardly to wait until the ribbons are about to give out before he grabs them, tugging sharply and making sure that Cas is awake enough to hear what he has to say - even if there’s the chance that he might not remember it in the long run. There’s no way that Cas is gonna hear it if he says it in his head, not with how fast he’s going under.

Dean leans closer, his lips by Cas’s head-fin. He tries to keep his hold on those ribbons and he shoves his memory of this morning into the kin-connection, filling Cas’s head with everything he felt and saw in those brief moments. His head-fin flexes slightly and Dean can feel recognition in their link.

It takes more than he’s willing to admit to rack up the courage to whisper against the spines and webbing two simple little words that that feel like they carry the same weight as a goddamn ‘I Do.’

“Ask me.”

And Cas is gone. Like a light blinking out, the kin-connection just flickers from existence and Dean immediately hates it. At least when Cas is sleeping normally they’re still connected, a dulled pulse of _being_ thumping like a heartbeat on the edge of Dean’s mind. It’s addicting. He’s lived his whole life being the only one locked up in his head, stuck with all the memories of taking care of his dad when we he was drunk off his ass, learning to shoot before he knew how to multiply, and taking care of Sammy – not that he doesn’t love Sam, because he loves Sammy more than he loves himself – but he lost out on having a childhood. He’d been forced to grow up too fast.

They moved around too much for him to have anything close to a friend outside of Bobby.  He lost his mom and his dad in violent and sudden ways, he nearly lost Sam to hard drugs and he went to _jail_ to keep Sam out of it. He’s a drunk just like his dad and for a while he was a pot head in high school before he dropped out and Bobby found out – the ass kicking for that hadn’t been very pleasant. He used to sleep with anyone who raised their eyebrow at him in a suggestive way – and as ashamed as he is to admit it, a few times it was for cash and _only_ to get Sammy things for school or to put food in his belly when asking for more from Bobby was just… too much.

And then he met Cassie and she’d been _great_.

Cassie had been good for him. She cleaned him up where Bobby and Sam couldn’t. She made him think he was worth something, got him to get his GED and started him thinking about going back to school for automotive engineering so he could make more while doing something he likes. Baby is one of the few things in his life that has been a constant rock, something that’s always been there and he loves losing himself in cars. He loves taking them apart, seeing what makes them tick, and putting them back together better than they were before. Cassie had seen this and she helped Dean see it too.

She’d filled all the cracks in him. She was one of the few pillars that held him up, that kept him from shattering. But when he took one of his hardest hits, when he went to fucking _prison_ for his little brother, she left him. He wasn’t worth the trouble – wasn’t worth the wait. Cassie never said that specifically, but Dean _knew_. Her dad never liked him much anyways.

Now he’s got Cas – Cas, who fills up every hole ever made in him. They’ve spent nearly three weeks straight together, literally _in each other’s heads_ , and Cas doesn’t hate him. Dean doesn’t even remember when his shell cracked and he told things to Cas he hasn’t even told Sammy. All the shit he used to do that he hid from his baby brother so he wouldn’t set a bad example – fuck load of good that did them.  But now look at him – Sam’s got a fucking _awesome_ education. An amazing job he loves and a fiancée everyone adores. If Dean’s done anything right in his life, it’s Sam.

Cas is a fucking lighthouse in the storm that’s been in his head since he was in the single digits and he doesn’t want to give that up.

Dean finished his degree in jail and he’s certified now. He can be a mechanic fucking _anywhere_. Fixing boats, fixing cars, fixing anything. He can get a job on the islands and be a goddamn _fisherman_ if he has to. Save up, get a boat, live out on the water where Cas can come see him every day. Cas can still have his family and Dean can still have him.

And Sam and Jess and Bobby? He can go visit them or they could come see him. Hell, with a decent internet connection he can talk to them every fucking day. After Cassie he was worried he’ll never know if anyone actually cares for him when they say that they do. But with Cas he can fucking _feel_ it. As long as Cas isn’t hiding behind walls Dean can know _for certain_ what Cas is feeling. There’s no _doubt_ , no worrying if he’s the only one feeling this way. It’s refreshing.

It’s a goddamn obsession and he doesn’t know if he can take losing it, if he can go back to being alone. Bobby has his work, Sam has Jess. Dean is just _Dean_ and who knows how badly Gordon’s fucked up their reputations to the media. He’s probably sold them out to have been the masterminds behind the whole thing with the pirates by now.

Dean only moves when Jess pulls up the x-ray machine and everyone has to put on the lead smocks. Crowley leaves, taking his ever present glass of scotch with him. Just like he promised, Dean doesn’t leave Cas’s side once while Meg sanitizes the area back of his neck. He switches to his other hand so he’s not in Jess’s way as she works the machine, but he never let’s go.

Even though he knows that Cas can’t feel it, he strokes his tail and tries to think soothing thoughts at him. The kin-connection is closed and Dean has no hope of touching Cas’s mind without it but he’ll sure as fuck try as long as it keeps him distracted from the big ass needle Meg is shoving into the back of Cas’s neck.

They can only go so fast, stopping every few seconds for Jess to take another x-ray and let it load on the screen of the laptop they have it hooked up to it. Dean tries not to watch but he can’t help looking every once in a while, can’t help making sure that Cas is okay. He’s too fucking _invested_ to let anything happen to him now – or ever. It’s the most foolish thing he’s ever done and he wishes he could bring himself to regret it but he really can’t.

And it’s why he’s not going to tell Sam or anyone until the boat is about to set out for home again. They’re going to object. Sam is going to try and be all _brain_ about this. He’s going to want to _talk_ and it’s going to be to talk him out of it. And Dean doesn’t want to hear t. Not when it’s a physical ache in his chest when Cas isn’t in his head and filling him up.

It’s not until that fucking chip is finally out, when it’s nothing more than a paint chip in a glass vial that Dean finally relaxes. He tips his forehead to Cas’s hip and breathes a sigh of relief. They’re not going to really know if Cas’s reflexes, mobility and everything are okay or not until he wakes up. For now he’s just bleeding a little bit and Jess puts a bandaide over it.

“So what did you tell him?” Meg asks as she starts to put her things away.

“That you weren’t going to fuck this up.” Dean smirks at her and softens the smile slightly. “Thanks, for everything.”

She raises her eyebrow and shrugs as she turns away. “My conscience is clean.”

Dean doesn’t know what she could be referring to, and he doesn’t care. He stays, fingers curled around Cas’s hand and thumb brushing the back of his wrist, until Jess says it’s okay to move Cas back to their room. She helps him roll Cas over and Dean only stops them to take a picture of the red ring around Cas’s face left by the head rest. Cas will hate him for it later, but it’ll be fun to tease him with it.

Jess holds Cas’s head still as Dean picks him up, and she guides him to rest his temple against Dean’s shoulder. She folds Cas’s arms over his stomach and gestures at his tail. Dean shakes his head. It’ll knock against his legs while he’s walking and going down the stairs, but that’s fine. He’s pretty used to it. Carrying Cas around is a helluva work out, but it stopped being a strain on his arms more than a week ago.

Sam is waiting in the bedroom when they get back and he keeps all his questions for after Jess helps him get Cas on the bed. She keeps his head steady again and Sam helps with his tail while Dean puts him down. As soon as Cas is settled, Dean gets one of the spray-bottles. He sprays Cas down carefully, rubbing the water into his scales and ruffled fans while Jess tells Sam about the operation.

Meg comes back by the time Dean is covering Cas with the blanket. He’s doing his damnedest not to think about whether or not Cas is going to remember what he said, or what’s going to happen when he wakes up. As far as he’s concerned, it never happened and it won’t have happened at all until Cas wakes up.

Dean finds Cas’s hand under the blanket. He holds it tight. He makes conversation with the others. He waits. And, baby help him, he hopes.


	34. Splinters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 33.**

That word keeps pinging around inside his head like some kind of deranged firefly. It’s bouncing back and forth between the walls where only Dean can hear it and he hates it. _CowardCowardCoward_. It wouldn’t shut up the whole time Cas was waking up; while Dean was checking him, making sure he could move; through Cas eating crackers and everyone just talking. Nagging like the girlfriend from hell in the back of his head.

Dean could have brought it up sooner. He could have mentioned what he had said just before Cas passed out earlier. He could have said it as soon as they’d moved out onto the deck and he’d cocooned them in a mess of pillows and blankets. But he didn’t because the voice is right. Dean is a coward. He’s shit scared that Cas does remember it, that he _did_ hear him and he’s choosing to ignore it, pretend like he didn’t.

There has to be a reason Cas never asked him it in the first place, right? 

It’s taking all of Dean’s willpower not to drive himself crazy thinking about whether or not it was something that he did. It’ll kill him if Cas won’t ask him to stay because there’s something that he did to make him think that he wouldn’t. Because he would. He’s rope the moon and throw it into the sea if it meant being allowed to keep that beacon in his head that made his head a less scary place to be in.

Why would he want to give this up? Cas’s hand in his hair, Dean’s head in his lap.  It doesn’t even feel weird that there’s scaled tail along his side and under his arm, or that the pliant webbing of his fans folds easily under his fingers. It was weird at first, feeling snake scales where there should have been smooth skin. But everything else about Cas is so fucking _human_ that it just makes him forget about the non-human bits.

If anything, Dean’s come to love the feel of scales around his legs and soft webbing under his hands. He’s pretty sure if this does end – and that thought sends an ache soaring through his chest – then it’s going to be a long time before he’ll be used to being with someone with legs.

The little voice isn’t shutting up and Dean needs to broach the subject somehow. The conversation with Meg earlier seems like a surefire way and Dean tries to keep any and all nervousness out of his thoughts as he brings it up again.

 _(So, you’re really not going to tell me where the colony is?)_ It’s not something he actually wants to know. Dean knows that Cas puts his colony’s safety over everything else and that’s pretty much the whole reason he hasn’t shared it with him yet. He might never share it with him, and that’s something he’s totally okay with.

Cas’s fingers in his hair stop and a curious, worried emotion tingles along the ribbons between them. _(Why do you want to know?)_

Dean shields his thoughts on reflex while he thinks about it. He wants to know because if he does end up sticking around here, at least knowing the general location would make it easier for him to find Cas, wouldn’t it? That’s perfectly logical in his head and he just needs to let that out for Cas to hear. But it wouldn’t make much sense to Cas if he doesn’t know that Dean _wants_ to stay. That all Cas has to do is say the words and Dean is there and waiting with the equivalent of “Let’s elope!” – and that should terrify him. It kinda does.

The longer he doesn’t answer, the more confusion and concern Cas sends into the kin-connection, tumbling along the ribbons to fall against the walls around Dean’s mind.       It takes too long for him to work up the courage to sit up and turn around to face Cas for this conversation. _CowardCowardCoward_ still playing like his very own theme song in the background of his thoughts.

_(How much to you remember before you went under?)_

Cas frowns and he looks back out at the sea. Dean doesn’t even need the kin-connection to practically see him sorting through the hazy memories of the moments before Meg hit him with the tranquilizer.

 _(Before I -? Meg told me about the sleep-poison. I laid on my stomach with my face in the padded ring. You were holding my hand –)_ A small curves the corner of his mouth and Cas looks back to him. It sends his heart skittering and Dean isn’t sure if he loves or hates that feeling. _(- you were still holding it even when I was waking up, weren’t you?)_

Dean can feel himself blushing and he rubs at the back of his neck as he looks out at the water. _(Yeah. You said not to leave you, so I didn’t. Is that all you remember?)_

Cas shakes his head. Dean feels both relieved and disappointed – and if that isn’t the weirdest combination of feelings he’s ever had, he doesn’t know what else could be. At least it means that Cas isn’t ignoring what happened. But it also means now Dean is going to have to actually have this conversation. There’s no way, after asking questions like that, is Cas going to just let him stop talking about this here.

He slumps against the railings. _(Yeah, that’s not really surprising.)_

 _(Did something else happen? Please, tell me.)_ Now Cas is practically radiating curiosity and his tail stretches between the space between them, sliding alongside Dean’s leg in a comforting touch and Dean’s chest almost hurts with how much he’s going to miss this if he has to give it up.

 _(I – it was –)_ He runs a hand over his face and then drops it to Cas’s tail, stroking the scales in a move that’s gives him more comfort than it should. _(Do you remember what you thought this morning? When you were going back to sleep after I soaked you down?)_

Cas’s frown gets deeper, the lines between his eyebrows pinching tighter as frustration sweeps into Dean’s head. _(How am I supposed to remember everything that I think or hear when I’m falling asleep?)_

It’s a perfectly valid question, but it scares the shit out of Dean and he groans. This is a land-mine sensitive topic for them to be talking about and it’s irritating enough that he’s the one who has to bring it up, that he’s the only one who knows what’s going on even though Cas is the one who started the ball rolling because he couldn’t keep his own thoughts to himself when he’s half asleep.

_(Never mind. It’s not important.)_

_CowardCowardCoward_.

Cas makes a quiet noise and he pulls himself closer until it’s his hands on Dean’s leg too. _(This isn’t the first time I’ve had to tell you that you wouldn’t bring it up if it wasn’t important. Tell me.)_ Dean doesn’t fight the tug to his sleeve or the cool hands that fold around his fingers. _(Tell me.)_

Dean doesn’t know how to tell him. How do you tell someone like Cas, someone who lives at the bottom of the ocean, that you want to stay with them? How do you tell them that you want to give up everything, that you’re willing to make the sacrifices and all the pain in the ass arrangements to move your life to the other side of the world because you’re addicted to how they make you feel? How does Dean tell him that he’s pretty sure that in less than a month Cas managed to make him –

Jesus, he can’t even say the words to himself in his own fucking head. They make his blood run cold and hot at the same time and he’s not sure how it hasn’t killed him. He’s really not. Those words are terrifying. The last person he said them to walked all over them when she gave him back the engagement ring. Left it on the table between them in the visitors room at prison and left without looking back.

Cas is practically in his lap, baby blues wide and begging and all his fins twitching with barely restrained curiosity. Dean caves. He fills the kin-connection with the memory of this morning, forcing everything he remembered seeing and feeling from Cas when they’d settled back down into the blankets to sleep. There’s a wave of horror and Cas sits back sharply the moment he realizes what Dean is sharing.

It’s not exactly the response Dean was hoping to get and something in his chest curls up and pulls away from that feeling. Dean steels himself against the panicked _nonononono_ coming from Cas and he forces the kin-connection wider, shoves it full with the next memory of just before Cas passed out.

“Ask me.”

Cas nearly fucking flinches and his eyes get even wider. It’s terror Dean sees staring back at him and he should stop. He should drop this and try and pretend he didn’t say those words again. But they’re out there. There’s no forgetting this. No matter how uncertain he is about how this thing is going to turn out, they’re already hip deep in it and there’s no backing out now. As much as he hates to admit it.

“Dean…” Cas says it on a breath and he shake his head, just a slight side to side.

That thing in Dean’s chest is withering. It’s folding in on itself like a dying star and Dean doesn’t know what to do except keep pressing forward. If he gives up now, he might lose Cas and he can’t, he _won’t_ , let this go without a fight.

“Ask me, Cas.”

Please, _please_. Don’t make him be the only one willing to do this.

 _(Dean – I –)_ Cas is shaking. His fans rippling and his the spines of his fins flexing. His hands are trembling in Dean’s and the broken noise he makes nearly has Dean stopping all this right now to wrap him in a hug and apologize and try – because, fuck, he would _try_ – to take things back to the way they were before he opened his big, dumb mouth.

_(Dean, I can’t.)_

He feels sick straight down to his stomach and now he’s desperate. Now he can’t just let this go. God knows that he should, but he _can’t_.

“Yes. You can.” Dean holds his hands tighter as Cas tries to pull them back. Cas hasn’t given him a reason why this can’t work; why he can’t do it. “If you don’t, I will.”

_(I can’t.)_

It’s killing him that Cas looks like he’s about to cry, that he keeps shaking his head and trying to pull away and Dean won’t let him. He can’t lose this too. He can’t lose Cas because of _this_. It would’ve hurt like a bitch to have to say goodbye in a week and never get to have Cas again after that. But if he’s fucked everything up now because he wants this – he doesn’t even know how to process that.

Cas doesn’t even let him get the thought in order. It actually _hurts_ with how hard Cas forces all the reasons why Dean shouldn’t have to leave his family and everything he knows just for him.

And that only annoys him. He shifts his grip to Cas’s wrists and tugs him forward, catching his eyes with his own and holding them so Cas doesn’t look away. _(Everyone I care for is here, Cas. And if they don’t want to stay too, then they can visit me. We’ve got technology that means I can talk to them every day if I want to. I lived for four years without seeing Sam every day and I can have my car shipped to Africa or something if I need to. And I’m a mechanic, I can get a job anywhere. If I get a job, I can get money, find a place to live, get a boat –)_ He’ll move mountains if it means Cas would just say ‘ _yes’_ and would just stop shaking his head.

 _(Please, Dean, don’t – we can’t –)_ Cas is pleading too. There are tears gathering in his eyes and Dean _hates_ that he’s the one who put them there.

 _(We_ can _, Cas.)_ He shifts forward, crawling into Cas’s lap and cupping his face in his hands. Cas leans into the touch and he’s clutching at Dean’s sleeves like he doesn’t want to let go. It gives Dean hope and he gathers that heat in his chest and uses it to soothe across the ribbons, pumping it into Cas’s head to remind him just what Dean feels for him. _(Ask me, Cas. Or let me say it. I want this and I know you do to. I don’t care if we’ve only know each other for weeks, or if it’s been months, or fucking_ years _. Cas, I’m happy.)_ Understatement. _(Happier than I’ve been in a long tiem and I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to lose you.)_

He kisses away the shattered noise Cas makes and tries to drag that crushing sadness that’s pouring out of Cas with his tongue. Cas gives into the kisses like they’re the only things keeping him grounded now, like he’s desperate to stay right here in this one moment. But then the moment is gone and Cas is pushing at his chest and the ribbons between their brains vibrate with more reasons about what his colony would do if he did stay. They’re reasons that Dean sort of understands, but they still hurt like little needles digging under his skin.

 _(So we’re Romeo and fucking Juliet? We can’t stay together because your family is going to hate me?)_ The anger tastes bitter and he lays his palms over Cas’s gills to make him keep looking at him. _(You’re going to let that stop you?)_

Cas looks lost and Dean can’t understand why. Why is this so hard? Why does Cas keep fighting it? He knows Cas wants him – doesn’t he? Dean can feel that heat beating in the kin-connection in time with the pulse under his finger tips. He’s got definitive proof in his own head of what Cas feels for him. But Cassie had said she loved him too. She said she loved him but she didn’t want to be with him anymore. Fuck, please, no. Don’t tell him it’s that all over again.

The thought makes Dean’s insides go cold and something tight pushes into his throat.

 _(I – We can’t. There’s more reasons why we shouldn’t. It’s… Please, Dean. Don’t ask me to keep you away from everything you know.)_ He looks down and away and he’s trembling so hard.

_(Cas –)_

_(You should go to bed.)_ Cas pulls his hands from his neck and that something curling tighter in Dean’s _snaps_.

He’s pushing Cas back into the pillows and blankets, fingers digging into his shoulders harder than he should probably be holding him. He can’t, he _can’t_ let this end here. God, no. This isn’t over, not by a long shot. _(No. I’m not done talking about this, Cas. We’ve got barely more than a day until Africa and half a week to the islands. I want –)_

Dean could have ended that sentence in any number of ways. He has a list of them in his head, of all the wants he’s got focused purely around Cas. Not a one of them makes it into the kin-connection. Those ribbons get severed so cleanly that Dean stops everything. He doesn’t move, doesn’t think, doesn’t even fucking breathe. The silence in his head is deafening, terrifying, oppressing. It swamps him and he doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say.

Cas’s lips tremble before he presses them into a thin line and turns his face away, eyes closed. He’s shutting him out, pushing him away. He won’t even _look_ at Dean and he feels something in chest splinter. It’s Cassie all over again. The nothingness in his chest starts burning, catching fire in an anger that Dean doesn’t know where to direct but at himself. He wants to be angry at Cas – for forcing his way into Dean’s head, for making him feel more alive than he’s felt in longer than he can remember and then taking it all away.

But he can’t. He’s Cas’s first anything and of course Cas doesn’t know what to do. Cas is probably fucking terrified and why is Dean surprised? He’s not worth the trouble it would cause for Cas or his colony. He’s never been worth anything before, why should that change now just because Cas fills all those little cracks in him? Why is it surprising that Cas means more to him than he means to Cas?

He needs to hit something and he does, punching the pillow next to Cas’s head and Cas’s flinch only makes him hate himself more. Does Cas really think so little of him that he thinks Dean would actually hurt him for this?

Dean needs to get away. His chest his burning and he can’t breathe through it. There’s a stinging behind his eyes and there’s no  fucking way he’s going to start crying here. The vicious part of him doesn’t want to give Cas that kind of vindication – doesn’t want to let him know what he just broke in him. He slams every door he goes through, shutting the bedroom door hard enough to startle everyone awake – judging by Jess and Bobby’s curses, Meg’s cry and Sam’s surprised snort.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice is muffled from behind the curtain before it gets pulled open.

He doesn’t answer, kicking his shoes off hard enough that Bobby curses at him again for how hard they hit the wall. Dean crawls into his bed and pulls the curtain shut hard enough that he almost rips it off the track. It’s only with his face buried in his arms – he left all the pillows and blankets outside – that he wonders if Cas is even going to still be there in the morning.


	35. Drinking It Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 33.**

Benny opens the door on the third kick. Dean has his guitar in one hand and the case in the other. He would’ve stopped for more stuff, but his room is literally just down the hall from here and if he needs anything he can go back and grab something. Right now he just needs to get away from Sam and his accusing questions, from Jess’s stink-eye, and he’s not sure he can stand to spend another night in his bunk without Cas there.

He’s reminded why they got along so well while they were in prison when all he gets is a once over and then Benny steps out of the way, gesturing for Dean to come inside. “What’s your poison?”

“The hardest you’ve got.” Dean doesn’t bother trying to sound peppy, brushing past and throwing his guitar case down on one of the beds, not caring who it belongs to.

There are four beds in this room just like all the others, but Dean doesn’t know if Benny actually shares the room with anyone. You’d think that a captain of a boat would get his own room. Guess that one goes to Crowley – which Dean thinks he might be over compensating at least a little. While Benny gets out the hooch, Dean tucks his guitar away gently and makes himself comfortable propped up in some poor schmuck’s bed. Looks like he’s going to be laying claim to it until Sam stops being a nosy asshole.

At least Benny knows better than to ask questions. He sits on the bed opposite with his own glass of whiskey and watches as Dean downs one after another until his tongue feels loose enough to dump everything he’s upset about. Benny listens, letting Dean run his mouth until he’s out of things to say. He’d hoped by the time that happened he’d be numbed by the alcohol, but there’s still that _pain_ sitting in his chest.

It makes Dean feel queasy, like he’s going to throw up but he knows he’s not. He doesn’t want to eat, and all the drinking is doing is giving him verbal diarrhea and making him sleepy. His hangover in the morning is going to kick his ass and he doesn’t even care enough to grab some water or at least get something in his stomach so if he does throw up in the morning he’ll actually have something to sacrifice to the porcelain altar. But he doesn’t want to move, he doesn’t want to think, he doesn’t want to do _anything_ because Cas doesn’t really want him.

Dean fucked up. He over reached – pushed the boundaries too much and he’s gone and lost Cas completely now. What the hell was he thinking bringing all that up? Cas shared that thought when he was half asleep – hell, he didn’t even remember saying anything. In the past, Dean’s said tons of things while he’s barely conscious that he never meant to say. Like the time he conked out in Sam’s bed by accident and when he was woken up to move to his own, he’d apologized for making out with the girl Sam liked at the time. He wasn’t even drunk that time, but he’d still ended up with his shoes glued to his feet for that one.

“I think you’ve had enough.” Benny says when Dean might have hit the double digits. He’s not too sure, and he doesn’t know when he went from whiskey to beer, but it’s a definitely a beer bottle that Benny takes away from him. “Why don’t you get some sleep, brother?”

The last thing he wants to do right now is sleep. Dean already knows that it’s hard to sleep without Cas nearby. Goddammit, he fucked up so bad. He knew they were going to have to say ‘goodbye’ eventually, but he never wanted it to be this soon or like this.

Somehow Benny gets him tucked into the bed and gets the curtain in place just as someone knocks on the door. Dean doesn’t know if he’s hope or dreading that it’s Sam with the news that Cas beat it and he’s gone for good now. He tries listening, but he can’t make out the words and it’s just so much easier to curl up under the blanket and be pissed off at himself.

“Dean.”

He flinches and pulls the blanket over his head before Sam can pull the curtain back.

“Oh for the love of – I’m just here to tell you that Cas says he’s going to sleep below tonight. Are you going to talk to him in the morning?”

“Dunno.” Dean mumbles, blanket still over his head. “Wha’ever.”

It’d be nice if that was the only time Sam came to talk to him, but of course Dean can’t be that lucky. Sam comes by several times through the rest of the day while Dean tries and fails at getting some kind of sleep. He didn’t sleep last night. He’s tired and drunk and he can’t sleep no matter how long he keeps his eyes shut because people just keep coming to talk to him. Sam, Jess – hell, even Bobby comes by to try and get him to talk and he already fought with Sam about it this morning, so why the hell aren’t they just leaving him alone?

Sweet, sweet unconsciousness comes sometime in the evening but morning comes way too early and it brings friends – nausea and hangovers. Dean still doesn’t want to get out of bed, but Benny is making a racket on the other side of the curtain, talking with someone he can only suspect is Sam. He’s one of the few people who keep showing up.

“Dean, we’re going in to harbor to stock up again.” Sam pulls the curtain back, ignoring Dean’s pained groan. “Are you going to talk to Cas now?”

Fuck no. He doesn’t want to talk to Cas and find out just how much Cas doesn’t want to be with him now. Dean knows Cas wouldn’t want to go anywhere near town – there’s too many other people and boats for him to want to do that. But if Cas doesn’t want him anymore, how come he’s still hanging around? Why does Sam keep asking when he’s going to talk with Cas? It doesn’t make sense and Dean doesn’t want to think about it anymore.

“There’s stuff I wanna get in town.”

No there isn’t. He’s basically finished Cas’s present – not that he’s going to want it now. He just doesn’t want to have to talk to Cas. If Dean goes into town, Cas isn’t going to come with them. He’s going to stay out here and the chances that he’ll wait around a few days for them is slim to none so Dean might as well just keep on pretending like he didn’t give up sometime yesterday.

“Okay. But what about Cas?”

“He can do what he wants.”

Talking makes his head hurt and Sam’s not shutting up. Jesus, does he _ever_ stop talking? How can he not clue in that Dean doesn’t want to talk? You’d think a pillow pulled over his head would get that message across well enough.

Dean doesn’t get out of bed until Sam leaves and Benny goes to do his captainly duties. A quick trip to the bathroom later and he’s rooting around in Benny’s stuff for his stash of booze. It’s probably the last thing that he needs right now, but there’s an ache in his chest that feels empty and it fucking _hurts_. Drinking yesterday didn’t make it go away, but maybe all he needs to do is drink more – drink until he forgets about Cas and all the different ways he made him feel.

Yeah, like that’s ever worked before.


	36. Falling faster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 34.**

Holy shit. Holy _shit_. No way is Dean hearing what he thinks he’s hearing through the kin-connection. Cas keeps talking, though, each word completely suffused with that unbearable _heat_ that eases that ache in Dean’s chest while simultaneously taking away his ability to breathe.

_(Let me tell them that I have found someone that I love.)_

Dean does stop breathing. His body locks up and it takes everything that he is not to drop down into Cas lap and hold on like he never should have let go a few days ago.

_(And if you’ll still have me, let me stay with you.)_

Jesus Christ, _yes_. Dean wants Cas. He wants him and this vibrant alien light on the edge of his mind and filling him up in all the ways no one’s ever been able to before. He wants to not be alone in his head and he wants it to be Cas there, lighting up the dark and chasing the shadows away. He wants it all and, call him selfish, he wants it forever.

Cas looks up at him steadily, his nerves betrayed by the rippling of those ruffled fans along his tail. He’s digging fingers into his scales and there’s so much _hopepleasedeanlove_ burning into his brain, burrowing into his chest. There’s really only one thing that he can do with this feeling and he can’t do it out here, not where anyone can see them.

He barely sees or hears Sam and Jess when they stammer out why they were hiding behind the door. Cas is radiating sadness and Dean knows why but he can’t worry about that right now. They need the room, they need privacy, they need to be somewhere he can get Cas alone and make him say those words again over and over and over. Hell, he’s even contemplating getting Cas to say it out loud so he can record it and listen to it whenever he wants.

Dean doesn’t know what he says to make Jess glare at him, but he glares back until they’re on the upper deck. He knows that Meg is having some kind of meeting with Crowley and Bobby is hanging out around the kitchen to make eyes at Ellen. Which means they have the room all to themselves and there’s this all encompassing _need_ to get Cas alone, to cover him with his body and apologize and just _be with him_.

Surprise fills his head when he goes back to pick Cas up. He ignores it. Dean’s determined. He’s going to get them behind that door and he’s going to make Cas say it over and over and Dean’s never going to be tired of hearing it. He won’t be able to say the words himself in his head – or even to Cas – no matter how much he feels it or wants to. Not right now at least, maybe not for a long time. But when Cas says it, he wants to lose himself in those words. Dean wants to sink into them and never come up for air again. He can’t remember the last time someone said that to him and took his breath away.

Maybe there’s another time when he’ll feel ashamed for just how fucking _desperate_ he is to keep hearing Cas say that. He’ll feel ashamed about the _need_ , about how starved he is for three little words that scare the fuck out of him.

There’s something a little too caveman-ish about carrying Cas over his shoulder, but it puts less stress on his broken arm and it’s just _easier_. It’s a blur getting Cas from the railing to inside the room and pressed up against the door. He’s pretty sure that at some point he locked the door and he’s focused on removing the belt first. It needs to be gone because he is _not_ going to get stabbed in the leg while trying to get as physically close to Cas as he can without pulling a Han-Luke-and-the-Tauntaun.

 _(What are you doing?)_ Cas tries stopping him from unbuckling the fucking belt and Dean shoves his hands away.

Of course Cas doesn’t know what he’s doing, doesn’t have a frikken clue that he’s eradicated any of the anger Dean had left from the other day. The walls in his head are up and holding strong. Dean doesn’t want him to know that he’s spent the last day and a half lost in drunken stupor; feeling sorry for himself for fucking up the one of the few good things he had going in his life (the irony that he considers this whole messed up situation as _good_ isn’t lost on him) because he couldn’t be satisfied with what he had.

Now Cas is giving him that _more_ that he wanted. Cas wants to come home with him. He wants to stay with him. Cas _loves_ him. Christ, he’s never going to be able to go without this _heat_ in his head again. It’ll break him.

Soon as the belt hits the floor behind him, he slides closer, situating himself in Cas’s lap and never wanting to leave it. He cups Cas’s jaw, thumbs sliding over the slight stubble – guess he shaved while he was down where Dean can’t follow. Dean’s begging. He knows he is and he can’t stop it. All he wants is Cas to say those words for pretty much the rest of fucking ever. To fill all the cracks in him and _stay_.

Understanding sways down the ribbons and they’re wrapped with so much heat that it’s melting holes in Dean’s. Cas’s hands smooth over his sides and his fingers curl in his shirt. _(I never meant to make you feel unwanted, Dean. You have to know that I want you, that you make me happy. I want to stay with you.)_

He should be embarrassed with the needy noise that manages to steal its way out of him. But Dean doesn’t fucking care and he kisses him. Cas tastes like the sea, like something unattainable except he’s _not_. Dean caught him. Cas picked _him_. Cas actually wants _him_ and heaven help him, Dean wants him too – bad enough that losing Cas and everything he gives him would fucking _ruin him_. It almost already did.

Dean has him say it again and Cas smiles into the kisses, tells him the same words over and over even when Dean stops asking for it. He fills Dean’s head with _wantyouloveyoudeandeandean_ and it’s terrifying just how easily it sits in his chest. It burrows a home in his heart and Dean never wants to let it go, never wants to feel so fucking _empty_ again.

His hands holds Cas as close as he can get, mouth never staying in one place long as he kisses Cas’s mouth, his jaw, his head-fins, his neck and gills and fucking anywhere that he can reach. Cas leans into every touch and he’s touching back too; raking his fingers through Dean’s hair, tracing his ears and down the back of his neck with feather light fingertips.

But Cas isn’t saying the thing that he really wants him to say. “The other thing – say the other thing. Please, Cas. Tell me what you’re going to tell your family.” _Tell me how you’re going to pick me over them._

Cas’s tail curls up over his back, the very end twitching over his shoulder and it’s heavy, it’s cool, it’s foreign but familiar and Dean gets to have it forever. _(I will tell them that I will miss them, but that I am happy with you. I need you. I feel empty, incomplete, when I don’t have the kin-connection with you. I will them that I love you.)_

Dean groans again and he doesn’t care because Cas doesn’t care. There’s nothing he has to hide from Cas and it’s not because he doesn’t understand half the shit that Dean’s done or anything like that. Cas knows _him_ and still wants _him_ , despite everything he’s seen and heard and Cas is going to be the end of him, he knows it and he doesn’t care. He’s too fucking happy to give a shit about anything else except for the cold, damp body cradling him close like he’s something special; something important; something _precious_.

The walls around his head drop eventually and even though he can feel Cas’s flash of confusion and concern at the drunken haze still clinging to his brain, he pulls him in. He lets Cas sink into his head and burn away all the self-loathing he’s been stewing in since the other day. It feels fucking amazing. He loves the heat Cas fills him with, loves the joy and the hope and fucking everything Cas never bothers hiding.

God help him, he loves Cas.


	37. Arguments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 34.**

_(Depending on what it’s about, I’ll let you know after, okay? It’s probably just going to be a huge lecture on having sex in the room again.)_ Dean grins and winks at Cas, hoping to all hell that that’s actually what they’re going to talk to him about whenever one of them manages to corner him alone. All signs point to that happening within the next few minutes. _(Don’t worry about it. I’ll be right back.)_

Cas is looking up at him with this kind of pouty-hurt look that Dean absolutely _hates_ seeing on his face. It’s not fair that Sam and Jess were being obvious enough for even Cas to notice. They could have just waited until they had a moment alone. But Cas isn’t completely hiding the sadness that’s leaking into the kin-connection and it hurts to know that it’s his own brother making Cas feel that way.

Dean hears the door close behind him and sure enough Sam is two steps behind him and calling his name. He puts up walls between him and Cas, blocking everything he’s going to think – especially just how frikken _annoyed_ he is right now – from the ribbons connecting him to Cas. Ideally, he should cut the connection completely. But Dean can’t bring himself to do that. Not after the oppressing silence he’d suffered through for nearly three days. He doesn’t want to give that up again _ever_.

Now that Cas says he’s coming home with him, he’s not going to have to.

He blames Sam’s freakishly long legs for how easily he gets ahead of him and blocks the stairs that lead up to the eating area on the second deck. Sam is like the beanstalk from hell when he plants himself at the base of the stairs, arms crossed and the most disapproving look of all time on his face.

This is not going to be pleasant.

“What is it?” Dean stops and tries to keep his expression neutral.

Sam only frowns more. “When were you going to tell us?”

“Find us a better place to do it and we’ll stop –”

“I’m not talking about the sex, Dean.” Sam adds the nose crinkle to the frown. Dean’s having trouble deciding which bitchface he’s using right now. “I’m talking about what Cas said before he went to sleep last night.”

Now it’s Dean’s turn to frown and suddenly he’s feeling like he shouldn’t have eaten. This can’t be any kinds of good. “In case you didn’t notice, Sammy, I was _sleeping_ when you got back. So you’re going to have to explain a little more than that.”

Sam makes a frustrated noise and the frown melts away into something that makes Dean feel even more uncomfortable. It’s all sad eyes and, if Dean didn’t know better, _pity_. “He said ‘Cas stay Dean home’. Does that mean what I think it means?”

Fuck. He’d hoped no one would find out about that until he had some time to think on how to tell them. Dean is expecting all kinds of opposition on this. Sam is going to sit him down and point out everything that Dean’s already thought of this morning in between make outs and filling Cas in on what being on land was like and answering all of Cas’s little questions.

Dean shoulders his way past Sam, knowing he’s going to follow right on his heels. “If you think it means that Cas decided he’s coming home with us, then you’d be right.”

Sam doesn’t say anything until Dean’s returned the trays to the kitchen and they’re on their way back to the room. This time Sam takes him by the elbow and drags him toward the back of the boat. Dean would fight it, he would say he doesn’t want to talk about it, but that would do absolute fuck all. Sam can dig his heels in just as well as Dean can.

“I know that you and Castiel are –”

“Just get to the point Sammy. You think it’s a bad decision for Cas to come with us.”

Surprise, surprise. That gets him another bitchface. “Of course it is!” Sam starts gesturing with his hands and Dean leans his hip against the wall. The quickest way to get this over and done with is to let Sam have diarrhea  of the mouth until he’s done and then make his own rebuttals. “I want you to be happy, Dean. I want _both_ of you to be happy. But you’ve only know Cas for a month and those were under some pretty stressful –”

It’s around there that Dean tunes him out. It’s everything he’s already thought about – back when he was the one who was going to move across the world. Sam goes on to point out that Dean doesn’t actually have a home, that there are going to be people everywhere, that Cas needs salt water and even if Dean does find a place to keep Cas, he’s going to be taking away so much of who Cas is.

He may not be actually listening, but he can still hear the words and the questions are irritating him more and more. They make him think about shit he doesn’t want to actually think about right now. Dean just got Cas back – not that he really lost him, but it feels like it – and they had one evening of good feelings and half the morning and now Sam is sucking those good feelings away like an emotional black hole. It’s pissing him off.

Sam starts pacing and he’s ranting about what would happen if anyone back home spotted Cas. Dean closes his eyes and focuses on _not_ thinking about Sam’s words. He’s better – sneakier – than that. There’s no way he’s going to take Cas anywhere where he’s going to be in danger of being found out. If it means that he’s going to have to build a shanty shack near the California coastline somewhere than he’ll do it. He’ll give Cas as much of his home as he can.

The touch along the ribbons is expected. Dean can feel the curiosity and the concern around the walls. He drops them just enough to reach around them and push away the worry that’s making Cas’s thoughts tremble. It doesn’t take much than a burst of heat, scooped straight from his chest to dump into the kin-connection, to calm Cas down.

_(Just talking with Sam. We’ll be back soon.)_

Cas’s touch pushes back, replacing the heat Dean scooped out with his own burning warmth, overflowing that space Dean made. _(Is it a bad conversation?)_

He doesn’t bother answering and just puts the walls up more again. There’s no point in explaining what Sam is talking about. If Cas hasn’t guessed it himself, then it’s just going to upset him and Dean doesn’t want that. He wants to keep Cas happy. That’s going to be hard enough to do once they’re back and Cas realizes just how much he gave up for _him_.

And that’s the one thing that’s been _really_ bothering him since Cas said that he wanted to stay. Dean can make plans for pretty much anything. He’ll find the best place to make a home for him and Cas and he’ll take care of him to the absolute best of his ability. There’s no doubt in his mind that he’s going to be able to take care of Cas.

But Dean can’t do anything about what Cas thinks, about what he feels. He can’t stand it if –

“What if he regrets it, Dean? What if he changes his mind? How hard do you think it’s going to be to get Cas home in six months? A year?”

Of course Sam’s going to find the one thing that _really_ bothers him. He’s his little brother for a reason and he knows Dean better than Dean knows himself.

Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t piss him the fuck off.

“I’m not messing with you and Jess, why the hell do you have to mess with me and Cas?” Dean snaps, turning on Sam. “This is what we want! So what if it’s been a month? Who cares that what we’ve got happened under all the shit Lilith put us both through? I know you’re feeling guilty about being the one who caught Cas in the first place but he’s happy now. _Cas_ made the choice to come home with me. I didn’t force him to do anything. He knows what he’s getting into –”

“Does he?” Sam steps up close. “Have you told him that you’re living out of the impala? Have you told him that you bounce back and forth between me and Bobby? Have you told him that he might not get a chance to swim again? Or that the only people he’ll ever see are us? He’s used to _hundreds_ of voices in his head. Now he’s being narrowed down to _you_. How long till that messes with him? How long till that _changes_ him?”

The hits a nerve. It hits something hard in Dean’s chest and sticks there like a goddamn burr. A sour taste raises on the back of his tongue and Dean doesn’t even know how the rest of the argument goes. But there’s more shouting than Dean likes to do – especially with Sam – and he has to walk away before he actually tries to throw a punch.

Dean knows that Sam is just trying to look out for both him and Cas. He knows it, but it doesn’t mean he has to like it. It’s not Sam’s fault. But why the hell isn’t Dean allowed to be _happy_ just once in his fucked up life? 


	38. Broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 36.**

“Sam just went outside.”

Dean can’t keep his hand off his arm, thumb brushing absently over the hickeys he put there. He can barely breathe around the tight knot in his throat and he feels like he’s going to throw up any fucking second. Good thing there’s a toilet five feet away. There’s a goddamn mantra echoing around his head. _It needs to be done. It needs to be done. Fucking just do it. It needs to be done._

This is the absolute last thing that he wants to do. He needs alcohol or something to combat this toxic burn under his skin because this is the worst – literally, the _worst_ thing he will ever do to someone. It’s going to fucking break Cas and it would break Dean if he wasn’t already broken and he needs to breathe. He needs to breathe so he doesn’t cry or throw up or both.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Dean?” Jo keeps her voice all quiet and soothing and Dean’s not sure if he appreciates it or hates it. “We can always back out.”

“No. Cas needs to go home.” The words feel like acid on his tongue. He wants Cas to go home but Dean wants to go with him – even if it’s frikken impossible. “Wet your hair.”

Jo does it quick and with the practiced ease of someone who’s washed their hair in the sink before. She rubs it down with a towel so it’s not soaked while Dean does his. He shakes his head and doesn’t care about the water dripping in his eyes. He’s starting to go numb from the outside in the longer he chants to himself that this is for the greater good. Cas’ll be happy with his family and he won’t be locked up like a pet wherever Dean ends up living. It’s no life for Cas and there’s no way Dean can take his away from his family, his friends and the sea. He can’t be that selfish.

This is for the best. Cas can go home and forget about him and maybe he’ll find another fin-kin like him and they’ll – Jesus, _no_. Dean can’t even _think_ that without his skin crawling. It makes his chest hurt and something dark and mean and fucking terrifying swells up behind his ribs at just thinking about someone else touching Cas like that. He’s so caught up with trying to squish that feeling back down where it came from that he barely even hears Jo’s suggestion. It’s something about a kiss and he already drew the line of how far they’re going to take this, she knows that.

Dean shakes his head and takes her place at the door, glancing around the frame. Sam is holding the door open and Dean can make out Cas pulling himself across the deck. His heart goes from double to triple time and Dean has to _force_ his breathing to calm the fuck down before he gives himself a panic attack because he doesn’t want to do this. God, no, please don’t make him do this. He doesn’t want to see what it’s going to do to Cas and this isn’t fair – why can’t this just be _easy_ for them? Why can’t Cas have his freedom and the sea and why can’t Dean have him?

 _It’s not fucking fair_.

The moment Cas is in the door and Sam pulls it shut behind him, something in Dean flicks like a switch. All that pain and hurt and _nononono_ that keeps pumping through his head with every frikken heartbeat gets muffled like he’s listening to it through a thick wall. This is eerily what it’s like when he’s in a fight. When everything feels like it’s moving slow motion and his body moves on autopilot.

Dean doesn’t even remember what he says to Jo while they’re playing out the stupid little scene. Her hands are on his chest and he’s leaning in like he’s going to kiss her. The scary part of all that is, he would have. He would have kept playing the part until someone interrupted and actually kissing her in front of Cas after he swore up and down that he doesn’t fucking cheat. At this point, he could almost kiss Sam for clearing his throat when he does.

Whatever managed to take him over and make it possible for him to play that out shatters the moment Cas turns away. Dean only gets a glimpse of what Cas looks like and he’d expected anger and hurt – he wasn’t expecting _that_. When Cas gets surprised, his fins twitch out wide and it can either be hilarious or badass depending on the reaction following it. Sometimes his gills flutter a little and Dean sees them doing that now while Cas is fumbling with the door handle, pawing at it like he needs it open _now. All of_ Cas’s fins are flat, thinned out and drooping like they’ve done every time Dean’s seen him cry.

That’s the sledgehammer to the wall holding back everything. _He made Cas cry._ He put that shattered look on his face and he’s the reason Cas is practically clawing his way across the deck and making broken little gasping noises like he can’t fucking breathe. Dean can hear them from here and he takes a step after Cas automatically before he stops. He doesn’t care about the disgusted glare Sam gives him before he goes after Cas, he doesn’t care about the worried look Jo is giving him.

Everything else just _stops_.

The plan went off without a hitch and Cas probably hates him now. Good. That’s what was supposed to happen. But Dean can’t get the _look_ out of his head. That crumpled, broken, _hurt_ – it’s all on an infinite loop in his head and his knees are starting to feel shaky and it’s getting hard to breathe. Dean stumbles into the bathroom and leans against the wall, sliding down it because he needs to sit down, he needs to – he needs to go after Cas and make it right but he _can’t do that_. Even if that’s what every little piece of him is screaming at him to do, Dean can’t. He needed to make Cas hate him, he needed to do something that would make him leave, and he did it.

Even if it broke Dean too. 


	39. Letting Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 37.**

He’s drunk enough to be slurring his words and sounding like a fucking hick, but that’s always the first thing to go with him. Dean can walk in a straight line and tap his head while rubbing his belly, but if you ask him to do a tongue twister he’ll fuck it up by the second word. The worst thing is that he’s still aware enough to know what’s going on. He’s not _that_ drunk yet.

God, but he wishes that he was.

Dean isn’t drunk enough to not feel the sharp stab in his chest when he steals a glance at Cas curled at the bottom of Sam’s bed, his hands over his head-fins and his face scrunched up like he’s hurting so bad it’s all he can do not to cry. And Dean’s the one who put it there. _Again_. But Cas wasn’t supposed to come back. He was supposed to leave yesterday and not look back and he wasn’t supposed to be here for Dean to have to say _that_ to him.

But it’s _true_. Dean doesn’t want to take Cas home with him anymore. He’d give anything to find a way to stay with him as long as it means he doesn’t have to take Cas to a  place where he won’t be able to be _him_. There’s no way he’s going to do that to Cas and if it means that they’ve got to end this _thing_ that they have – _had_ – then that’s just how it’s gotta be. Staying together doesn’t mean shit if it means that either one of them has to give up anything that’s such a big part of who they are.

Because Cas _is_ the sea. He’s beautiful to look at, holds more than Dean could ever even begin to understand, and deadly. Cas had every reason to hate him and kill him and Dean gave him every opportunity for that. But Cas let Dean in instead. He’s been in Dean’s _head_. He hasn’t seen all the crap in there, but he’s seen enough to know the difference between who Dean is and who he lets the world see. Cas knows all that and he still – He never judged him. He never thought anything Dean has done was shameful or disgusting. He had a clean slate with Cas and now he’s gone and taken that and shattered it.

Dean’s trying hard not to think about whether or not Cas feels just as broken inside as he does.

It doesn’t help any of this that Crowley came out of left field with his plan to take the whole fucking colony. That means Cas has to go now no matter what. He needs to keep his colony safe and keep an eye out for any attempt that Crowley makes on the colony. He needs to go home and be happy there, with his family and friends and the ocean and he needs to forget Dean and everything that they had because that’s for the best. Any sort of ‘them’ just wasn’t in the cards, no matter how much Dean wishes that it was.

His arm is still stinging from where Jess punched him. Even though he knows that Cas has to go and _now_ , it’s still a hell of a surprise when Ellen says the anchor is up and it’s time. It’s like a punch in the gut and it forces the air out of him in a sound he’s pretty sure he hasn’t made since the night he got stabbed. It kind of feels the same too – like a wrenching burn in his chest, like someone took a knife and decided to try and carve his heart into little pieces to pull out from between his ribs.

He kind of wishes he could get the same kind of numb going on inside again. Like he did when he had to fake everything with Jo. Dean isn’t sure why it’s not the same now. Maybe it’s because of the alcohol polluting his head, or it might be a hundred other reasons. He can feel everything hurting, but instead of feeling it through a wall before, this time it just feels like it’s happening far off. Like it’s happening to someone else entirely even though he can still feel the pain – kind of like when you’re arm goes numb after laying on it, but it hurts to move.

None of that really matters though. Now they’re out of time.

Dean has to force himself to move and when he does it’s like moving through tar. Everything goes in slow motion, but at the same time it seems like it’s going too fast. Every movement hurts, right down to the words he spews without even knowing what he’s saying, to shoving the present he made – back before they fucked everything up between them because neither one of them wanted to let go – against Cas’s chest. He doesn’t even know if Cas is going to wait it after all this, but at least he’ll have _something,_ because Dean lost track of how many times Cas got sad over having to go home with nothing but his memories. Maybe that will keep him from tossing the damn thing into an underwater volcano.

It hurts and it doesn’t. It’s building up on the other side of that numb little buffer that doesn’t make sense to him because he can still feel it but it hasn’t clicked somewhere in the dark of his head that it’s happening, that he’s really feeling all this shit.

Cas drops his hand to hold the thing like it’s an automatic motion and he looks so surprised by it, staring down at the plastic bag wrapped around the frame. It’s just two plates of glass Dean found in storage, held together with carpenter’s glue and caulking along the edges to make it waterproof. Bobby gave him the stink eye for using materials like that when they might need them if they ever sprung a leak, but he hadn’t said anything and he hadn’t stopped him because making it for Cas was _important_.

Even after all this shit Dean pulled – is _still_ pulling – he wants Cas to have it. No matter how big a part of him hopes that Cas can go home and forget this all, there’s a bigger part of him doesn’t want Cas to ever forget him. God and every non-existent, useless, piece of shit angel up there knows that Dean won’t forget. This – this was _more_ than Cassie. More than Lisa, and Pam, and anyone else. And he had to go and find it in a fucking deep sea _fin-kin_.

Just another hard chapter in the life of Dean Winchester. Next thing you know, life is going to take someone else he cares for from him. And it won’t matter how hard he tries to protect them. Someone or something is going to take everyone from him one day and there’s fucking _nothing_ he can do about it.

That’s just one of the many things that’s going to haunt him until his dying day. Just like this. Just like how Cas shouts and squirms and tries to get away when Dean ducks down to grab him around the waist and drag him to the edge of the bed. He doesn’t even want Dean to fucking _touch_ him and that sends a whole different kind of knife digging under his skin to add to the growing tidal wave that’s going to knock him off his feet when it hits him fully. The little eddies curling around his feet are _nothing_ compared to what he’s going to be feeling later.

It hurts like a bitch when the end of Cas’s tail hits him in the legs and it nearly knocks him right off his feet as he hoists Cas up. After a month of hauling his ass around, it’s barely even a strain to lift Cas enough to get him bent over his shoulder. Pinning his goddamn tail down is the difficult part. Dean’s to out of sync with himself to even be thankful that Cas’s claws haven’t grown out yet, meaning he’s not shredding the shit out of his back while he scrabbling for some kind of hold to stop him from doing this.

But his mind is made up. This is for the best. It’s the most painful goddamn decision he’s ever had to make and he doesn’t even have the first clue how he’s going to recover from it, but this _has_ to be done.

The deck is a death trap trying to get from the door to the gate. Dean gives up and goes for the wall instead after he nearly turns his ankle. The bars by the gate will be easy for Cas to grab and it’ll be harder not to accidentally go overboard with him. It’ll be too easy for Cas to drag him off the deck if he tries standing out there past the gate. It’s just _easier_ to do this at the wall. It’ll be just like all the other times he’s thrown Cas off a boat – one too many for his liking.

There are words somewhere from someone and Dean answers on autopilot. At least _some_ part of him isn’t here for this. Of course he spoke to fucking soon because that shitty numb barrier that’s barely doing its job evaporates the moment he’s got Cas far enough onto the wall that he can see his face.

Everything becomes blurry then. The rain, the edges of Cas, the waves behind him. It blurs _him_. He’s just one great be fucking mess and he doesn’t give a damn that the flood gates unleash. Even if this is the only way that Cas is going to be happy, Dean doesn’t want to let him go. Dean can’t give Cas what he needs when he’s shit broke and living out of his car, pool sharking for gas and food money and he can’t afford anything as fancy as an ocean side place where Cas can be himself. If Cas stays with him, he’ll only be half of who he is and Dean can’t do that to him. He _can’t_ take away such a big part of Cas just because they were dumbasses and fell in love with someone from a whole different world.

Shit. Fucking _shit_. He thought Cassie broke his heart. This right here – this is cutting out every last piece of it. This is breaking him worse than that ever could because Cas looks _terrified_. He’s digging his hands into Dean’s shirt and he can feel Cas’s nails biting into the skin around his neck, the cord of his necklace pulling tight as Cas grabs at anything and everything he can. Dean’s got his tail pinned between his hips and the wall, refusing to give him the room he needs to wrap it around his waist.

He gets his hands against Cas’s chest, ready to push and he doesn’t care if it rips something or makes him bleed, Cas can’t hold on and he’ll ditch his whole shirt into the ocean if he has to. Even if every single fiber of his being is fucking _screaming_ eight words in a chorus that’s going to blanket everything else from the inside out.

 _‘Cas, I don’t want to let you go._ ’

Over and over and he’s thinking it as loud as he fucking can even though he knows they don’t have the kin-connection. But Cas stops too, he stops struggling and fighting and he stares right back at Dean like he _knows_ what he’s saying. All that’s left on his face is pain and for a second Dean thinks maybe Cas sees everything written plain as day across his forehead and cheeks and he’ll know and he’ll understand and that this is what needs to be done.

He lets himself have that one second before he shoves and Cas gives a startled gasp. As most of his weight slides too far back. Some part of his shirt rips and there’s a painful pinch on the back of his neck. Something snaps and Dean steps back, unpinning Cas’s tail so it goes right with him. His stays standing long enough to see Sam step up to the wall and chuck the plastic bag overboard. Funny, he didn’t even notice that Cas had dropped it.

His knees give out right around the time that the engine kicks in. The moment they hit the deck, everything starts spinning and whatever little thread of Dean’s control is left snaps. He doesn’t care that Bobby and Ellen and Jo are probably standing behind him. He doesn’t care that Sam is next to him and Jess is there too. He doesn’t care that he can’t even see straight through the tears and he presses his forehead against the wall, arms wrapped around his waist because everything _hurts_.

And nothing matters right now.

 _Nothing_.

Because he just threw away the puzzle piece that _fit_ and he feels like he ripped something out and he’s not sure he’s ever going to feel complete again.


	40. Missing Him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in between Chapters 38 and 39.**

It’s Dean’s first birthday since all that bullshit with Lilith, and it sucks – without a doubt, it is the absolute _worst_ birthday he’s ever had. And that’s taking into account the ones he spent in prison. At least for those he’d had Benny to celebrate with. Right now he doesn’t have anyone. Which is why it’s two in the afternoon and he’s already racked up a decent tab in the lounge at some stupid restaurant down the street from Sam’s place.

Everyone else dolled themselves up in their Sunday best and trotted off to the courthouse like they’re supposed to. There’s been court sessions almost every day for weeks trying to get Crowley locked up for good and Dean hasn’t been able to be a part of any of it. He’s either been too drunk to stand witness, or passed out on the couch at Sam’s place. Not that he really minds. Seeing Crowley and Meg would just remind him about Cas and being reminded about him just leads to more drinking.

Which is why it kind of sucks that pretty much _everything_ reminds him of Cas. Colours, sounds, smells, and of course the fucking _ocean_. Why do Sam and Jess have to live on the coast? Why can’t they live in nice landlocked Kansas or something? That would be great. Then he wouldn’t be assaulted by the smell of the sea every time he steps out the front door. He wouldn’t be carrying around this giant fucking _ache_ in his chest where his heart used to be.

If they weren’t so close to the ocean, maybe Dean would be able to forget. Maybe he’d be able to fill that empty space in his head with something other than alcohol. The only good it does is lessening that pain behind his ribs after the first half dozen beers. But that gaping _silence_ is killing him and it takes a half dozen more to make it even slightly bearable.

It’s been over half a year and a day doesn’t go by that he hasn’t thought about Cas. If he could get a redo on everything he did at the end, maybe he’d be feel better. But he fucked up – and he fucked up _so bad_. He should never have tried to trick Cas into leaving him, and he damn well should’ve explained himself first before just throwing him overboard. They could’ve taking over the boat or something instead of that.

Having twenty-twenty hindsight has always been one of Dean’s worst qualities.

To be completely honest, he’s been drinking less lately. Dean’s almost certain that it has something to do with the file he’s got saved on the flash drive he keeps hidden from Sam and Jess in a roll of socks. But today is special. Aside from it being his birthday, what drove him here when he woke up a little over an hour ago was that his first thought had been that he wished he could’ve had at least one birthday with Cas. It would’ve been awesome to show him at least some kind of special day. A holiday, a birthday, _something_.

Or maybe he just wants Cas back, _period_. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Dean finishes up at the bar an hour later feeling  properly shitfaced and he knows for sure that Sam is going to bitch about it later when everyone come backs just to find him too wasted to go out and celebrate. That’s fine. Maybe he’ll spend tomorrow sober enough to go to dinner with them.

He’ll probably wake up in the computer room again, slumped forward with his cheek getting a nice impression of the keyboard. It’s pretty much how he’s found himself every other night for the last few months. And that’s where the secret file comes into play. The first time he found it, there was over fifty pages of memories drunkenly typed out and the program’s activity log showed that he’d been writing it for a while. Strangely enough, writing everything that happened on those boats – the stuff about him and Cas and everything in between – it, well, it kinda helps. That’s why Dean thinks he’s been drinking slightly less lately – though Sam and Jess don’t seem to think so.

If it wasn’t for the wedding in a few months and the court case going on right now, Dean would probably feel like he’s over staying his welcome. He’s offered to leave more than a few times, but Jess refuses to let him leave. At least he’s been paying part of the rent. Or he’s pretty sure he has. Sam’s supposed to be taking the payments directly out of his account from whatever money Lilith paid them before she canned their asses. He’s been picking up hours whenever he’s sober enough for it at an garage he used to work at before his stint in the pen.

When he stumbles into the apartment, he’s more or less intent on collapsing face first on the bed so he can just leave this stupid day behind. Dean doesn’t want to _think_ anymore. He thought letting Cassie go was hard – but she hadn’t actually been in his _head_. She never carved out a place for herself in his heart like Cas did. Cassie might have if she’d put up with him longer, but he’d driven her away by choosing to save Sam’s future instead of his own.

Unsurprisingly, thinking about Cassie doesn’t make any easier to _not_ think about Cas. Especially when Dean finds himself sitting down in front of the computer with an unrolled pair of socks in his hand and a flash drive in the USB port. Fine. If he’s going to think about Cas, then he might as well just get all this out now. Maybe once everything’s down on digital paper instead of stuck in his head, he’ll finally be able to stop thinking about how royally he fucked up one of the best things to ever happen to him.

He’s still writing by the time Sam and Jess get home. The real world is kind of a haze to Dean right now. He can hear them stomping about complaining about judges and lawyers in the other room, but it’s like it’s not really happening. Right now, Dean’s caught up in messily typing every detail his drunken brain can remember of the day Pam died.

The only thing that gets him to come back to the present reality is when Jess leans over his shoulder and squints at the screen. “Hey birthday boy.” She squeezes the back of his neck and blows in his ear just because she knows he hates it. “What are you writing?”

“Stuff.” He grumbles, fingers still going even though his mind isn’t really stuck in that room anymore and he’s not seeing what that fucking _torpedo_ did to Pam. “G’way.”

“Are you writing a book about what happened?”

Dean’s answer never gets past his beer soaked tongue. He’d just been writing all this to get it out of his head.  It hadn’t really occurred to him to turn it into a _book_. Can he really get this published? Can he write it in such a way that it’s not going to put Cas and his clan in any kind of danger? The prospect is actually kind of appealing. It would be one hell of a way to honour Cas – even though it does nothing to make up for what Dean did to him.

He shrugs again and Jess rolls her eyes. “Fine, keep your secrets. How much did you drink today?”

“Lots.”

She sighs and tugs at his ear. “Get up and go shower. If you want the pie we’re making, you’d better at least _smell_ good. Come be social for a little while.”

Groaning, Dean swats her hand away. The last thing he wants to do right now is be around other people. But really, as if _he’s_ going to say ‘no’ to _pie_. It’ll be a cold day in hell before he turns that down. After saving his document, Dean lets Jess drag him down the hall to the bathroom where she threatens to lock him in if he doesn’t start taking proper care of himself.

“I smell _fine_.” He hisses through the door and her laugh fades up the hall back to the kitchen.

One shower later, Dean’s sitting down to Sam’s homemade burgers – which aren’t nearly as awesome as his are. Pie follows the burgers and even after downing three of them, Dean still manages to eat half the pie to himself. It’s his damn birthday pie. He can eat as much of it as he frikken wants. The only reason he doesn’t eat _more_ is because Jess and Sam shared the other half between them.

Jess laughs when he looks mournfully at the empty tin. “Would a birthday present make up for it?”

“S’pie?” He’s got one hell of a craving for blueberry right now. Of course he’s not actually hungry, and he knows that eating isn’t any good way of dealing with how much he’s hurting – same as how drinking is a shit way of handling it.

The look Sam and Jess share isn’t all that comforting. Jess slides a little wrapped package across the table and Dean gets that giddy thrill at the sheer fact that it’s a present for him. His vision keeps going blurry and he’s been slurring his words all afternoon. That said, it takes him longer than it should to maneuver through a Rubik’s cube of scotch tape to even get the fucking _paper_ off. It takes him even longer to figure out what the hell he’s looking at.

“It’s for your wallet.” Sam supplies helpfully and it finally clicks that they aren’t just re-gifting him the picture he has of him and Mary in a nice plastic sleeve that’s actually a _book_. It’s the kind of thing that grandpas keep in their wallets stuffed full with pictures of their grandkids.

Dean lifts the first page and barely looks at the group photo sharing the same sleeve. The third picture is what catches his attention, and the fourth, and then the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth. It’s obvious the pictures were printed here and not at a photo lab – which kinda explains why Sam bought the home photo printer a few months ago. The only people Sam and Jess would trust with pictures of Cas are the one sitting in this room.

He’s purposefully not been looking at any of the pictures of Cas that he has. Dean gave them all to Sam when they finally got home so he wouldn’t be tempted to. This is the first time in over half a year that he’s seen Cas’s face and it’s like a sucker punch to the stomach. Thank fuck that he doesn’t cry. Or, at least, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t. It’s hard to tell when everything is already pretty fucking blurry.

It feels like his throat is closing up and his face feels hotter than it should. Somewhere in between then and calling it an early night, he manages to say thank you. And he is. He didn’t really forget what Cas looked like, but seeing him again – even in a picture – hurts like hell. But it’s a _good_ hurt. Sitting on his bed and looking over the pictures, Dean realizes he doesn’t feel the urge to drink, or snack, or find anything to bury that hurt.

Actually – seeing Cas just renews his enthusiasm for that whole _book_ project. He’s already got it mostly written. There’s just everything from Crowley’s boat to do and Dean figures he can get all that done in a few weeks. Yeah. He’s got this. He’ll do it for Cas, and for _himself._

It’s weirdly fitting that it’s his birthday and he’s got that whole _reborn_ feeling tingling through his veins.

Over the next three months, Dean practically throws himself into writing. It takes him a few weeks to stop drinking entirely, but by then he’s already finished actually _writing_ and now he’s editing. He takes from what are basically his notes and he molds them into a new story that mirrors everything that happened to him and Cas.

Dean pours himself into this book. He spends _hours_ on it, from sun up to sun down. Sometimes he barely remembers to get food and the only time he leaves the apartment is when he gets called in to the garage. Within a month, he’s sent the manuscript off to a publisher and is honestly surprised when they actually like it. They do a little cleaning up on it, of course, but Dean pretty much stays out of the rest of the process.

He feels – well, he feels _healed_. With that book getting printed, Dean feels like how Cas used to make him feel. Before he felt worthless, damaged, completely _broken_. And now? Now he feels like he can finally move on.

Then all of that changes when the twenty-seventh of April rolls around. It’s a year to the day that Dean pushed Cas off the boat and he spends the whole day drunk off his ass. He knows it’s going to be a onetime thing when he wakes up on the twenty-eighth because he doesn’t feel nearly as bad that morning as he did the day before – except for the fucking _colossal_ headache and how his leg from the knee down feels like it’s kind of on fire.

When he finally manages to peel his eyes open, he finds himself face down on the couch with Sam sitting crosslegged in front of him. Dean groans and closes his eyes again. It was just _one_ day. It’s not like he’s falling off the wagon or something. He just couldn’t face yesterday. Now it’s gone and he’ll be fine so Sam really, _really_ doesn’t need to give him the lecture of all lectures.

“Dean.”

Wow, he hasn’t heard that tone in a long time. It’s the I-can’t-believe-you-did-that tone. Which only makes Dean and his throbbing head wonder what the hell he did yesterday to make Sam use it. He sighs and turns his face into the cushions.

“ _Dean_.” Sam repeats, and this time he shakes his shoulder. “You should really get up and put some lotion on that.”

“Put lotion on _what_ , Sam?” He groans, lifting his head to squint at him. At least someone had the decency to keep the curtains closed. “Did I throw up on something? I promise I’ll clean it up later. Just gimme a minute, okay?”

Sam snorts and shakes his head. “I don’t know how the hell you got _throwing up_ from _lotion_ , but you should really get up and take care of that tattoo. You’re going to have to live with it for the rest of your life, so you might as well take care of it from the start.”

That gets Dean sitting up and it sends a stinging pain up his left leg and his head feels like it’s going to explode. It takes a few minutes of breathing with his head between his knees and his eyes squeezed shut before he can even think of moving, let alone taking a look at his leg.

“You must really miss him, huh?”

Dean groans again. “Please tell me I didn’t get a picture of Cas tattooed on my leg.”

Sam’s silence is a little too obvious and Dean’s stomach turns. Which really isn’t a good thing for him right now. There is no way that he’s that far gone that he would stoop to tattooing Cas on himself. That’s just – that’s crossing into the _really_ crazy side of breakups. He’s already toed that line with being drunk for over half a year and writing a fucking _book_ about their ‘star crossed love’ – as his publisher promotes his book. Dean refuses to be the crazy ex.

When he opens his eyes, Dean looks down at the plastic wrap taped around his calf and the blue ink underneath, lined with red and bruises. Fucking _Christ_. He’d recognize Cas’s tail pattern anywhere and now he’s got 6 dots and three bands of it on his calf. On _both_ sides, judging by the sting of it. Actually – these aren’t half bad. A little weird, sure, but at least it’s not Cas’s face or a full body shot or something. It’s just a part of his pattern.

“It looks weird.” Jess announces from the kitchen where she’s brewing up  pot of coffee. “I mean having it on just one leg. You look unbalanced now.”

“Are you suggesting he goes and gets the right leg done too?” Sam looks over his shoulder and frowns. “He got a drunk tattoo, Jess.”

“I know, and it’s kind of sweet.” She shrugs and comes to join them with three cups in her hands. “You’ve been talking about wanting a better reminder of Cas and what he did for you. Now you’ve got it. Or at least half of it.”

Dean stretches his leg out in front of him while he sips at his coffee. Maybe it’s the hangover, but he’s actually not even all that disappointed in himself for getting it. And Jess is right. He’s off balanced now. He has no idea _where_ he got this done, but he could probably check his credit card statement to find out. The hangover is probably still affecting his judgment, but Dean likes it. He likes it and he wants to get the other leg done too. Carrying a part of Cas with him always is kind of really appealing. 

Now there’s just one question to ask.

“What the hell happened to my pants?”


	41. Fantasies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place between Chapter 38 and Chapter 39.**

He never actually expected people to like his book. Or for it to sell _at all_. Dean has more money than he ever thought he’d have, but he’s still living in Sam’s spare room. At least he knows for sure now that he’s paying rent. He hands over a cheque every month and Sam and Jess keep telling him that it’s okay for him to hang around. It just means that they can save more money to get a bigger place, or save up for the kids they’re undoubtedly going to have some day because either it’s going to be kids or dogs and Dean wants to be an uncle.

Also he’s pretty sure that they’re still scared his going to fall off the wagon and start drinking again. Living with them is the only way they can really keep an eye on him and Dean’s fine with that. He hates disappointing people and having Jess and Sam around kind of really helps keep him oriented. Well, that and the fact that he actually has a _publisher_ now and apparently the ending of his first book, From Below, was too open ended for their liking. They want another book and that was kind of part of the contract with them publishing the first one.

But what the hell is he supposed to write?

Dean’s pretty sure that they’re not going to like him writing about a pining drunk-who-isn’t-so-drunk-anymore and boring court cases. He could probably make shit up about what Cas is doing back at the colony. Maybe even invent the possibility that they moved and Cas had to start a new life with them somewhere else. And even if it turns his stomach to think about it, he could fabricate a new relationship for Cas now that he actually knows about his own sexuality. Yeah, that would go over great with his readers. Cas having a new love interest while introducing homosexuality to the fin-kin. Just _great_.

Or Dean could go completely off his rocker and go straight up fantasy on this fucker. He could write the entire book from _his_ fantasies. Everything that he wishes he could do if it were even slightly possible. He could write about one of the epic plans he’s had over the last few months with a way to find Cas again. If he did that, he could write the happily ever after that the publishers are looking for – the one that he wishes he could have. But instead he’s left with this kind of aching _canyon_ inside his chest and head, and he’s not sure if anyone is ever going to be able to fill it.

After another several minutes of staring at the computer, Dean closes the empty document and gets out one of the battered little notebooks he’s been keeping around for any ideas that might strike him at stupid moments. Maybe he’ll get some inspiration from the soaps playing right now.

He takes the notebook to the living room, passing by the kitchen on the way. It’s not that he _means_ to eavesdrop on Jess and Sam’s conversation, but it’s not like they’re actually talking all that quietly. And since they’re talking about _him_ it’s not really his fault that they catch his attention.

It’s the tail end of what Jess is saying that brings him to a stop. “… tell Dean about it?”

Dean leans around the corner to look at them huddled together at the table and looking at all the papers covering it – not like that’s any different than usual. “Tell me what?”

Both of them look up and around fast enough that Dean’s own neck twinges in sympathy. They probably just gave themselves some intense whiplash. It’s their own fault for trying to be sneaky around him. As if they don’t know that it’s nearly impossible to keep secrets from him most of the time and especially now that he’s usually sober.

Jess winces and mouths an apology at Sam when he gives her a dirty look. Clearly they weren’t ready to tell him whatever it is that they’re damn well going to tell him now. Screw writing more cockamamie ways to find Cas and have a happily-ever-after that doesn’t actually exist for anyone. Well, maybe for Sam and Jess. Fine, okay. For Bobby, Ellen and Jo too. But him? Dean doesn’t get that. He already accepted that a long time before Cas fell into his lap and started giving him that whole _right_ feeling.

“Nothing.” Sam tries, gathering up the papers. “It’s nothing. What do you want for supper?”

“Really? You’re going to go for ‘ _nothing_ ’?” He snorts and crosses the kitchen to block the only path out. “You’re not even going to attempt a lie? That’s sad, Sammy. I’m disappointed in you.”

A snort of laughter from Jess earns her another glare from Sam and she just rolls her eyes. “Oh, let’s just tell him already. He’s been sober for over a month now and he’s going to find out sooner or later. You know how he is.”

“ _He_ is standing right here.” Dean points out, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow at the both of them. “Out with it.”

Sam holds on for another two minutes of tense silence before he sighs and slumps back down into his chair. “Fine.” He gestures at the only other open chair at the table while spreading the papers out in front of him again. “Sit.”

Jess takes a few of the papers and stacks them closer to her and away from Dean. He gives her a suspicious squint when he drops into the other chair, but it rolls off her like water off a duck’s back. It probably helps that she’s not looking at him and pretending to read the papers or some other shit like that. She’s a crafty one. Dean can see why Sam married her.

“Look at this.” Sam pulls his attention back to the papers as he shoves one under Dean’s nose.

It’s covered in columns of numbers and it doesn’t take much for Dean to realize that it’s a bank statement. What confuses him the most is that it’s got his name on the top of it, but the mailing address is a post office box. Unless he did something while he was drunk, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have a PO Box _or_ a secret bank account. He’d definitely remember something with that many digits.

“What the hell is this?”

“That’s the compensation for traumatic events that you got from Lilith’s company.” Jess says all matter of fact, like it isn’t a great big _what the ever loving fuck_.

“Why am I just hearing about this now?”

Sam takes the paper back and clips it to a little stack he’s making. “Because you were drunk off your ass when we all got our cheques. I forged your signature and opened a kind of trust fund in your name to let it build up until I thought you could spend it wisely – instead of pissing it away on whatever the hell caught your attention while you were shitfaced.”

Dean can’t really be mad at him for just having his best interests in mind, but the shitty little attitude Sam is pulling right now is mostly what’s getting under his skin. He knows he fucked up a lot when they got back and he’ll own up to all the times he puked in the sink or pissed in the tub or tried bringing home hookers only for them to throw a bitch fit because he kicked them out of his room before things could get anywhere close to good. But that doesn’t mean that Sam has to _keep_ rubbing his face in it. Still, he’s the big brother and he’ll play the bigger person here. If he just happens to put a little more hot sauce in Sam’s supper tonight than anyone else’s… well, he can just claim his hand slipped.

“Thanks, Sammy.” He tries to give him a small smile. “That was good thinking. I really appreciate it.”

If anything, Sam looks really taken aback by that. He even shares a stunned look with Jess and that just tickles Dean pink on the insides. It takes most of his willpower not to grin like a Cheshire cat at them. Instead he points at the papers that Jess has.

“Are those _your_ bank accounts?” At that point it occurs to him that if they _both_ got the same amount of compensation as he did, then their bank accounts must be padded like crazy. “Hold up. How come you’re both still living in this dump – no offense – if you’re stinking rich?”

Jess blows her hair out of her face and gives Sam a weary little look. “Let’s just tell him.”

“I thought you already told me what you had to tell me.” Dean pulls his bank account papers back over to himself. It’s his account so he might as well keep these now. It’s not like he’s itching to buy anything. After all, his book money is just piling up too. “What else is there?”

Sam bites his lip and drums his stupidly long fingers on the table top for a few moments. He’s thinking it over and that means it’s gotta be something big. The only reason Sam would have to weigh pros and cons about keeping something secret from Dean is if it’s something so big he doesn’t think he could handle it. Well that’s a confidence booster if ever there was one.

Dean puts on his serious face. “Sam. Tell me.”

“We got a job offer.” Jess says in a rush and when Sam glares at her, she only shrugs and keeps going. “Actually, we were told about the position because technically we’ve kinda been in the area before and we applied just for the hell of it. We didn’t think we’d actually get accepted, but apparently we have and we’re on the fence about actually taking the jobs.”

Something in Dean’s chest clenches and that hollow feeling gets even worse. “You’re moving?”

“We might be. If we accept it.” Sam sighs, leaning back in his chair and giving Dean a kind of sad, pitying look. Probably because Dean sounded like he was five years old right there.

He _hates_ that look and he tries keeping his cool, but it’s a little hard to do when it feels like he’s going to throw up. If they move, then Dean’s going to get left behind again and he’s not sure he can take that. But he can’t be a selfish bastard and let them know. They’re a family now and they want to start one of their own. He can’t keep being in the way like this.

Dean forces a bright smile and he knows Sam can tell that it’s at least half fake. “Oh yeah? Where is it?”

The look they share does _not_ help that quickly growing hollow feeling inside of him. Jess chews her lip slightly before answering. “Cape Town.”

“Where the hell is that?”

“Africa.” Sam draws out the syllables. “Specifically, Southern Africa. The very bottom, actually.”

It should not be possible to feel hot and cold all at the same time. Dean feels dizzy as he puts two and two together and it’s a damn good thing that he’s already sitting down. “How close –”

“Half a day’s ferry ride to the islands.”

Now Sam’s talking faster and Dean isn’t sure if that’s just how he’s hearing him or if he’s actually doing it. He feels sick and the room is kind of spinning. Sam doesn’t need to name the islands because Dean knows exactly which ones he’s talking about. The ones with the fishing area that they found Cas. If they accept this job, they’re going to be _half a day_ away from where Cas lives – or used to live.

“You could come with us.” Jess offers. “The pay is going to be _great_ and they’ll find us more than decent housing and everything before we even move. If you come with us, maybe you could – well, it’s just an idea, but you could try finding him again?”

Dean squeezes the notebook sitting in his lap, knowing full well that there are a dozen or more pages in there filled with cramped notes on various possible ways he could go about looking for Cas and finding him again. He would give just about anything to even just _see_ Cas, but the chances of Cas wanting to see him again after what he did are basically slim to fucking _none._ It feels like everything they had was severed at the knees and Dean’s just left hanging.

“It’s just something to think about.” Sam says eventually, when Dean realizes he’s been staring at the table for way too long. “This is a great opportunity for Jess and me, and we’re seriously considering it. If you want to come with us, we’d be happy to have you.”

Jess gathers all their papers and she stands up, reaching across the table to pat him on the hand. “Think about it, Dean.”

Like he has any other choice. This is going to haunt him until they make their decision. He’s going to have to keep his mouth shut. Anything he says might swing things in his favour and this isn’t about him and Cas – even if he would probably sell his car just for the chance to see Cas again. Besides, there’s no guarantee that Cas is even still there. With everything that happened, it wouldn’t be any surprise if the colony decided to move. Cas might be millions of miles away from those islands by now and going there would give Dean nothing more than nostalgia for the best thing that ever happened to him.

This, though, this hits him hard. Just the _possibility_ of it all. He could afford it. With the money from his book and this secret bank account he never knew he had – he could totally afford to move to Africa _and_ bring his baby with him. It’s not like Dean has much else to bring. He could probably fit it all in one bag if he had to. Hell, if he wanted he could probably build his own frikken house.

Maybe he shouldn’t have had that stray thought. It keeps him up into the wee hours of the morning for a few days in a row while he exhausts their internet connection with Google search after Google search. He even makes a frikken _spreadsheet_ , calculating all the costs it would take to build a house in Africa.

This is all part of his fantasy, though, especially when he starts designing a house for the hell of it. And it doesn’t escape his notice that all the measurements and placements of the rooms are being designed for a fin-kin who’d be stuck in a wheelchair. Dean decided a long time ago that a wheelchair with some kind of bucket to hold his tail in would be the most ideal way for Cas to get around.

No one is expecting Bobby to send a group email almost a week later with the subject: **was dicking around & saw this – might help with a decision?**

The only thing in the email is a link and Dean hits ctrl+w to close the window before the whole page has even loaded. It’s like everyone in their fucked up little family is out to get him right now. Dean doesn’t need Bobby emailing him real-estate ads for chunks of land on islands that Cas probably doesn’t even live around anymore. He has to be real about this. The chances of him even seeing Cas again – the chances of Cas even wanting to see him or talk to him – Cas _hates_ him. After everything that Dean did to him before he shoved him overboard, there is no possible way that Cas _doesn’t_ hate him.

All of this is just _fantasy_ and Dean would be better off forgetting about it.

That’s really hard to do when Sam group-replies to the email saying what a great place it would be to build a house –“Because I’ve seen that spreadsheet, Dean. You might want to try not saving things to the desktop for a change.” – and how close to the ocean it would be for Cas while still being close to him and Jess – “Plus it’s closed off, so it’s way less risky for Cas to be seen!”

He is going to have to have words with his brother. Harsh words. Some might even involve his fists. All they’re doing is putting ideas into his head and they’re ideas he shouldn’t fucking be having. He blew his chance with Cas. Shot it right out of the water and any possibility of them _maybe_ seeing each other again is astronomical at best. And Dean doesn’t use _astronomical_ a whole lot.

None of that changes how Cas hates him.

Dean says as much in _his_ group response. If he happened to have had a few bottles of beer before he answered, his family is to blame. They know how touchy a subject Cas is with him and all they’re doing is picking at scabs. When Dean’s gets pissed, he drinks. In hindsight, he should’ve replied _before_ opening the first beer. His answer to the email is a jumble of typos and swear words, but he’s pretty sure that his point gets across.

It’s still pretty heart-stopping to find Sam perched on the edge of his bed like a scarily large vulture when he wakes up the next morning with beer breath and a fuzzy tongue. The last thing he wants to hear when he’s got the stinging throb of a hangover is: “We need to talk.”

“G’way.” Dean grumbles, rolling onto his stomach and pulling the blanket over his head.

Sam doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, but he also doesn’t move. When he does, it’s just to yank the blanket away from him and say something that brings all of Dean’s vitals to a stuttering stop. “Cas knew about your plan with Jo.”

Never in his life has Dean sat up so quickly. He completely ignores the dizzy spin of the room as he grabs the front of Sam’s shirt. “What the hell do you mean he _knew_? Cas didn’t _know_. The whole point of it was so that he’d hate me enough to leave without –”

“Jo told him.” Sam shoves his hand away. “She didn’t feel right about what you two did and she came and she told him. That was only a few hours before you came crashing in.” He looks Dean straight in the eye again. “Cas knew everything.”

Dean wants to punch him, but he settles on hugging him and then shoving him off the bed. “Why the _hell_ didn’t you tell me this sooner?!”

“For the same reason you didn’t want him to know that the whole thing was faked.” He explains, picking himself up off the floor like it’s no big deal. “You wanted to break up with him and move on because it was what was best for both of you, right? Well the stars are lining up, Dean, and you’re not going to get a better chance than this. Jess and I are taking the job.”

He is way too hung over for his head to be buzzing with as many thoughts as it is. But Dean can’t stop thinking, can’t stop planning, and he sure as fuck can’t hold still. His legs tangle in the blanket when he throws himself out of the bed and damn near lands on his face for the effort. He hops and kicks his way across the office-turned-his-bedroom, trying to get to the desk and rid himself of the blanket in the process. Half of the papers scattered across the desk end up on the floor as he digs out the ones for the not-so-secret-anymore bank account.

“What are you doing?”

Dean doesn’t say anything and drops into the desk chair to boot up the PC. His knee bounces like crazy while it starts up and the mouse can’t click fast enough to open his email and get the link Bobby sent. If Sam notices that Dean had the email saved, he doesn’t say anything. But when the link finally loads – and this is the first time Dean actually _sees_ it – he swears loudly.

The fishing grounds where they found Cas were off of one of _three_ islands. According to the listing Bobby sent, pieces of one of the islands are being sold off. Some of the pieces come with private beaches too, but they’re all _fucking expensive._ It only gets worse when Sam takes the mouse from him and clicks open one of the options. It’s a little cove connected to the ocean and everything about it is just fucking _perfect_ for a place for him and Cas to live – regardless of whether or not Cas still lives around there.

Cas knew. That’s the whole thought driving him right now. Cas _knew_ and Jo told him everything. Which means she probably told him _why_ Dean did what he did. So Cas _knows_ and that’s enough to give Dean a glimmer of hope. It’s enough to shut a door on every little thought about how the colony might have moved already and all those other little doubts.

Because Cas knowing? That’s the best damn thing Dean’s ever heard. He’s felt lost since he finished the book and this feels like someone suddenly slapped a road in front of him. Dean doesn’t know if it’ll actually lead to Cas, but at least it’s _something_. And even if he doesn’t find Cas, he’ll have one hell of a summer home that he can rent out, or sell it, or who the fuck even knows. But at least he’ll have the _option_ – if he ever does actually find Cas.

“I think you’re going to need more money.” Sam pats him on the shoulder while they stare at the price of the cove. It’s in hideous red numbering to one side of the screen and Dean _hates_ it with a passion because he can’t afford it. He’d need at least twice, maybe three times as much as he has now.

“They’re _crooks_.” Dean hisses, gesturing at the screen. “It’s a piddly piece of land, how the _hell_ can they get away with charging that much?”

“Just give me a minute.”

He turns in his chair to watch Sam leave and he can hear him talking with Jess in the other room. Jess gives a wild shriek of laughter and then she’s all but stampeding through the door. Her hug nearly knocks Dean out of the chair while simultaneously managing to squeeze the life out of him.

Sam comes back at a much slower pace, but that might have something to do with the phone he’s got pressed against his ear. “Yeah, yeah. Good. Yeah, just transfer it to Dean’s – Great. Thanks Bobby, we owe – Don’t say that, you’ll make him cry.”

Dean doesn’t need to ask to know that he’s talking about him. “I will _not_.”

“Will too!” Jess singsongs in his ear.

She’s right. He does. But what else is he supposed to do when Sam takes over the computer to transfer all the money he got from Lilith into Dean’s account? Following that up with the money that Bobby transfers too and Dean has more than enough to bid on the land with extra to spare.

It takes weeks of planning, but by the time they’ve packed up the apartment and put all their shit – baby included – on a freighter to Africa, Dean has a construction crew hired and ready to start building the moment he lands. An architect buddy of Jess’s even pulled a miracle out of her ass and whipped up the plans for one of Dean’s fantasy homes. She put together blueprints and everything and Dean might have gotten a little teary eyed over that too.

A year. It takes a whole frikken _year_ to build the house. Workers come Monday to Friday to help haul materials over the walls of the cove from barges that bring it all in. Dean helps the best he can with ferrying things back and forth at the same time through the crack in the wall. This literally is the perfect place and Dean tries not to think that all of this has to be coming together because it’s some kind of weird _fate_. Bullshit like _destiny_ and the stars aligning – that’s all part of a happily-ever-after and he’s already well aware that isn’t in the cards for him.

But that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to _try_.

For most of the year, Dean sleeps in a tent on the beach. When he isn’t helping out with construction, and he’s not working out a plan on how to find Cas and his colony with Sam, he’s holed up in that tent with his guitar. He and Sam had spent _ages_ deliberating about how to do it. They’d already taken sonar off the table because they don’t want to scare Cas’s colony away if they’re still around. What they needed was something that would get Cas to come to _them_. And Jess, bless her soul, is the one who remembered how Cas said his brother was first caught.

But for Cas to come, they need a song that’ll grab his attention. The best one that Dean has saved is that love song Cas kept singing to him. He hasn’t listened to it in forever and now he listens to it on repeat with his guitar and blank sheet music spread out before him. It’s hard to write an accompaniment when he doesn’t have the original song on paper too, but Dean does most of it by ear and writes down what he can afterward.

The end result is Cas’s voice and Dean’s guitar, harmonizing in a melody that makes it hard for him to breathe. There are some nights he falls asleep listening to the final recording – both on the beach and in the house when it’s finished and partly furnished.

If he’s lucky, sometimes his dreams are filled with Cas answering his reply and coming back to him.


	42. Hello Again... Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place between Chapter 40.**

The rope isn’t even out of the water yet and Dean can see that it’s not going straight down anymore. It just makes him pull the damn thing up even faster until he’s _sure_ that it goes around the back of the boat instead. Dean isn’t even sure where his heart is right now. It feels like it’s in his throat but at the same time it’s beating so hard it’s making his chest hurt. There’s only one reason the speaker wouldn’t be where it’s supposed to be and _this is it_.

After months and months and months and nearly give up what little hope he had when he started searching, _this is fucking it._

Sam swears at him when Dean damn near pushes him out of the way, but he shuts up when he sees the rope. He’s expecting to see that pale face framed with the black-blue head-fins peeking out at him from the water. He’s expecting a frown, or a smile, or outright anger for everything that he did three years ago. What Dean _isn’t_ expecting is to find the speaker sitting on the swim-deck without a fin-kin in sight.

He hands the speaker off to Sam and shoves his hands through his hair, resisting the urge to start pacing and swearing. Dean expected Cas to be upset with him. Even if Cas knew the truth – and Dean damn near kissed Sam full on the mouth when he told him that Jo had spilled the beans – that doesn’t mean that he’s not upset. Hell, if he never trusts him again Dean wouldn’t be surprised. There are so many things that he’s been hoping for and expecting and they all keep conflicting with each other that some days Dean doesn’t know what the hell he’s supposed to be feeling.

Right now all he feels is this gnawing panic in his stomach because _Cas is here_. Who else would have put the speaker on the back of the boat? Cas is here and he’s hiding or he’s already swimming away because he doesn’t want to talk to Dean for who knows what reason. But all that boils down to Cas being _here_.

There’s no double or triple thinking about what he does next. He’s spent three years thinking about Cas and missing that light in his head and all that _heat_ that he kept pumping into his chest. He’s spent three years missing the fuck out of him and there is _no way_ on God’s green Earth that Dean isn’t going to see him right now when he _knows_ that Cas is out there right now.

He yanks off his shirt while he kicks off his sandals and Sam gets maybe two words before Dean is over the edge of the boat and in the water. The salt water stings his eyes a little, but it’s nothing he hasn’t had before and Dean looks around in the blue, hoping that Cas didn’t go straight down into the dark way, _way_ below him.

That fear pretty much evaporates when Dean sees him. He’s maybe two, three car lengths away at best and watching him. If Dean hadn’t let out all his air and nearly gulped down a lungful of water right then with his near laugh and grin, he’d have taken more time to just _look_ at Cas. But first he needs to _breathe_. One quick gasp and he’s back under again. He’s not letting Cas out of his sight, not when Cas was _swimming away_.

And he’s trying really hard not to let that thought bring down this ridiculous glee building in his chest at just getting to _see_ Cas again. He hasn’t changed a bit – same black scales and blue spots in swirls and circles, same ripping fans along his tail that keep him floating in place. Fuck, he wishes Cas was closing so the water wouldn’t be blurring the rest of his features. Dean can barely make out his face from this far and he just –

Shit, it feels so good just to _see_ him again and Dean knows he’s grinning like a maniac but he can’t fucking help it. What the hell is he going to be like if he gets the kin-connection back? If he gets to touch Cas again? And he’s not even thinking of that in any kind of dirty way. He just wants to _touch_ him. His arm, his hand, his tail, anywhere as long as it means just reach out and making sure that Cas is actually _real_.

The blur comes up out of nowhere. It’s faster than Dean can react to it and he’d probably be freaking the fuck out right now if he even remotely thought it was a shark. He may be half blind in the water, but at least he can still tell the difference between the shape of a shark and the shake of a fin-kin. It’s another fin-kin – the first Dean’s ever seen aside from Cas – and Sam is going to shit his pants for missing this.

Cas turns around to face this other fin-kin and Dean goes up for a breath. Sam keeps trying to say things to him when he does it, but Dean ignores it. He usually only has lectures to give him about not half drowning when he does shit like this – since this really isn’t the first time he’s jumped in and taken a look around himself sans scuba gear. Not that he even owns any of that stuff. Though now that he’s found Cas again, he might just invest in it.

It’s hard to make out what’s happening, but Dean is pretty sure this new fin-kin, darker than he would have thought possible for something that lived in the deep sea, has a sword out and he and Cas are _not_ happy to see each other. He’s starting to get the sneaking suspicion that this is probably his fault and he fucked something up big – and that feeling only cements itself in his head when the other fin-kin pulls Cas behind him and he looks like he’s about to fucking _charge_.

Dean doesn’t move except to kind of paddle himself closer to the boat. It’s not that he’s actually scared of this new guy or anything. He just can’t look away. If he does, if he gets out of the water, Cas might go away again and he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to lose sight of him again until they’ve had a chance to talk and he finds out if there’s even a glimmer of hope that they can still be a _them_. And even if they can’t, even if Cas can’t forgive him, Dean still wants to try and at least be friends. He’s pretty sure he can do that. It might kill him a little inside, but Cas is special – he has been since day one.

There’s another reason that Dean isn’t scared of this other guy and that reason is entirely Cas. He’s twisted out of the other fin-kin’s hand and does a fancy little flip around him to place himself back between them. Even from here Dean can see that all his fans are spread and he’d be willing to bet what’s left of his little fortune that Cas is probably growling up a storm.

Nobody really moves except for Dean and that’s to grab a couple breaths of air. On one such pop up to breathe, Sam does the unthinkable. He actually _grabs Dean by the hair_. Of course it works wonders to keep Dean from going back under, but it fucking _hurts_ and he’s pulling at him like he’s trying to lift him out of the water by his goddamn follicles.

“Dean, get out of the water!” Sam manages to grab his wrist when Dean goes to smack him away. “Get out of the water right now!”

“No – fucking _let go_ , Sam –” He tries flailing his arms and kicking away from the boat, but Sam is like an octopus and somehow he gets his hands tucked under Dean’s armpits. “Sam, no! Cas is –”

“Cas just told me to get your ass _out of the water_. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but we’re in danger here and he’s telling us to _go_.”

Dean stops fighting then and he doesn’t exactly help with lifting him out of the water. Cas talked to Sam. That other fin-kin is here to start shit and rather than warn him Cas decided to talk to _Sam_ instead. It’s been three years and Cas was going to swim away. He was going to swim away and rather than talk to Dean about the potential danger of getting disemboweled by a pissed fin-kin with a sword, he chose Sam and that – that is the entire reason Dean sits in the seat Sam dumps him in, head in his hands, while Sam hits the button to recall the anchor and he starts up the engine.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, doesn’t even know if Sam says anything to between then and when the engine roars and they actually start moving. Dean sits up straight and whips around, staring out at the water in the general direction he’s pretty sure Cas is in. He’s leaving him _again_ and he doesn’t want to. He’d rather face that goddamn fin-kin with the sword than leave Cas behind again and the only thing stopping him from jumping ship right now is that dark burn in his chest that’s eating away at all the hope he’s had a finding Cas again.

They get back to the house and Dean doesn’t even care if it’s a dick move to leave to tie up the boat. He’s on the dock and up the stairs before the engine even cuts out, leaving his clothes and his laptop and everything in the little covered cabin. Jess is sitting in the living room watching some show on the satellite and Dean doesn’t even say anything. He doesn’t want to tell her that Cas left the speaker on the boat and was going to swim away without a word to either of them, or that Cas talked to Sam instead of him. He doesn’t even want to tell her that they found Cas and that he does live around here and they know which coordinates to take the boat to now.

He doesn’t even know _what_ he wants to do. All he can think about is just getting away from everyone and think. But Dean doesn’t _want_ to think. He’s spent a year building a house that he might have hopefully designed to accommodate Cas and he’s spent half a year – more if you include all the testing they did to make sure the underwater speaker and everything actually _worked_ and the math they had to do to figure out how to split up the map – looking for him and Cas doesn’t even want to talk to him.

No matter how you look at it, that _hurts_. Even if he does deserve it for the shit he pulled the last time they saw each other.

Dean hears Jess call for him and he ignores her, shutting himself up in the bathroom for a long, hot shower. Something to try and soak away all these thoughts in his head. But it’s so quiet and all he has are his thoughts right now. There’s no pulsing, alien beacon chasing away the dark, there’s no _Cas_ and there might never be again and that just – Dean can barely breathe around that.

It’s not until he’s lying face down on his bed, his music playing loud enough from the laptop Sam left on his bed to make the weak of will cringe, that he realizes something else. They left Cas back there without a weapon – none that Dean saw anyways, aside from how Cas _is_ a weapon with his claws and his teeth and his general attitude he used to have towards anything that so much as looked at Dean the wrong way. They left him up against another fin-kin and who knows if any other showed up after they cleared out, and they’re probably all pissed as hell that humans were trying to find Cas. And the whole point of all those thoughts boils down to one thing – they left Cas in danger.

Dean knows the ocean isn’t the friendliest of places, but Cas grew up there. He should be able to hold his own, right?

Great. Now on top of the depressing cloud of rejection, Dean has a whirlpool of guilt sucking him down into the crushing depths of worry about Cas’s safety. He grabs a pillow and pulls it over his head, trying to make everything go away. He knows Sam probably told Jess everything that happened – unless Cas didn’t tell him about the other fin-kin, because Dean sure as hell hasn’t told anyone what happened. He locked the bathroom door and the bedroom door to keep Jess from steamrolling in and sitting on him until he gave up the answers.

The only time he actually comes out of the bedroom is for supper. It’s a late one and he doesn’t even eat it, sitting slouched in his seat and picking at the food until Jess takes his plate away and eats it herself. Sam makes sure that he doesn’t go back to the bedroom, steering him to take a seat on one of the couches instead. He doesn’t have the energy to fight him on it.

They get through a few episodes of Jess’s crime drama before she finally turns it off and throws the remote at him. “Out with it. What happened?”

“Jess –” Sam says softly. He knows Dean better than pretty much anyone and he knows that he’ll talk when he’s ready.

“There was another fin-kin and he was going to attack.”

That shuts them both up.

But what else is he supposed to tell them? That Cas hates him now? That they left Cas to fight it out and who knows if he’s hurt or even alive and _fuck_ he feels like he’s going to be sick just thinking about that. OF course he expected something like Cas not wanting to even see or talk to him. It’s one of the hundreds of scenarios that have kept him up at night since he bought the damn cove and started building the house. But it still hurts.

What’s he supposed to do now? He could rent the house, sell it, or stay here like he planned. But can he do that? Just looking at anything in the living room makes him think about how he built this place for Cas to be happy in too. He built it on blind hope and he’s not even sure he has that anymore.

Sam gets up and he moves around, getting Jess something to drink and making a snack or something. He’s in the kitchen when Dean feels that pressure in his temples. It’s a feeling he’s never going to fucking forget, but it’s fleeting, there and gone before he can focus on it.

There’s a crash in the kitchen and Sam shows up in the door way. “Did you –?”

“You too?” Jess is already struggling to get to her feet.

“What are the chances that it was an exhaustion headache?”

“For all three of us?”

Dean doesn’t even need to give his answer, they both already know it. He’s going for the door and fumbling to pull the stupid thing open. The moment they’re out on the deck, Sam starts asking if anyone sees Cas. Dean doesn’t know how Cas found the place, but it was probably Sam and he might have to buy him something really awesome for his birthday next year for it because Cas is here. Somewhere in this cove, hiding under the water, is _Cas_. He’s alive and _here_ and Dean can barely keep from throwing himself over the railing to find him.

“Didn’t I say we should have installed underwater lights?” Jess grumbles, leaning over the railing as best as she can to look straight down. “But do you idiots ever listen to me? No, of course not. Don’t listen to the pregnant lady. She’s _crazy_.”

“He glows in the dark, Jess. Underwater lights would be ridiculous.” Sam goes to the corner of the deck to look out at the cove behind the house. “Are you sure it wasn’t a regular headache? We’ve all been –”

“If you say it’s because we’re all exhausted one more time, I swear to God, Sam Winchester, I will divorce you this instant.”

Dean rolls his eyes and moves towards the steps. Maybe Cas is closer to the beach?

“Stressed. I was going to say that we’ve all been _stressed_.”

“Stressed enough that we all felt a headache at the exact same time?” Jess is starting to sound angry and Dean wants to put even more space between them. “He’s out there. He’s just hiding from us. Castiel!” He looks on reflex, just in case she spotted him. “Castiel! You get your scaled butt out here!”

It takes a beat before Dean says anything. “Maybe it’s me.”

Sam comes back across the deck and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Dean –”

He shrugs him off, voice staying low and quiet because that’s how he feels. Dean feels about as low as you can get, especially since Cas is _still_ hiding from him. “He was going to swim away, Sam. He put the speaker on the back of the boat without saying anything to either of us. If I hadn’t jumped in, he would have swam away. When he wanted me out of the water, he talked to _you_ , not _me_.” It hurts to say it just as much as it hurt to fucking _think_ it. “So what else could it be but _me_?”

“That’s not true.” Sam grabs his arm to keep him from heading back inside. “He was scared, Dean. Scared and angry because that other fin-kin was there to _hurt you_ – us.”

“So what? He still talked to you instead of me. He was still going to leave again without saying anything.” Dean pulls away and he just wants to go crawl into bed and not come out for a few years. “He knew it was a lie but I fucked up bad enough that he can’t even _talk_ to me. Just let me –”

The splashing and thumping cuts him off. It’s loud and obvious and coming from the dock and Dean nearly trips over his own feet running to the stairs. Everything kind of just _stops_. His heart, his breathing, the world, time. It all stops. The only thing moving is Cas as he’s pulling himself up onto the dock, his glow all dim and barely outlining all his markings. But that doesn’t matter because he’s actually fucking _here_. He’s spitting out the last few mouthfuls of water and pushing himself up and Dean is halfway down the stairs when Cas looks up at him, all his fins flaring. There’s no water to blur anything and in the light from the house Dean can see _him_. Eyes, nose, mouth, chin, stubble and all.

The ache in his chest nearly knocks him off his feet and Dean has to sit down before he ends up falling down the rest of the stairs. It wasn’t like this in the water. He didn’t feel like he got hit by a cement mixer back then. Maybe it’s because there was so much space between them, or maybe it was because he couldn’t see his face and those fucking _eyes_. Baby blues that seem so human but _aren’t_ and Dean’s pretty sure he was lost to Cas the moment he looked him in the eye.

Cas’s glow gets brighter. Lighting up the area around him and he’s squinting up the stairs like he can’t really see them and Dean wants to smack himself. The lights from the house and the shadows and of course Cas can’t really see them that well and he’s sitting too far for Cas’s light to reach him. But around the squint Cas looks unsure, nervous, and his fingers are doing that pinching thing he does to the soft fans along his tail. He looks like Dean feels – uncertain.

Sure Dean is over the fucking moon that Cas is _here_ and only six steps away, but at the same time he’s trying really hard not to have a fucking panic attack. Cas isn’t smiling. He’s not moving and he’s not making the kin-connection, but he’s not looking away from Dean. He’s also not making the kin-connection or saying anything and Dean has so many questions bubbling on his tongue and Cas won’t understand any of them without that link.

He nearly has a heart attack when Jess speaks up. “Well, aren’t you going to invite him in?”

Right, yeah, he should do that. Cas doesn’t know yet that Dean wants this to be his home too. Dean has to force his hand not to shake when he lifts it to tap at his temple. One little gesture has Cas’s dorsal fins flicking out and shuffling against his back. Watching them move makes Dean’s fingers twitch. He wants to touch them again and feel the hard ridges of the spines and the soft, pliable webbing in between. He wants to run his fingers along where the webbing molds into Cas’s skin to watch Cas squirm and make all those little pleased noises he used to.

Fuck, he missed him so much.

When the pressure builds in his head again, Dean doesn’t fight it. He lets it build and break and it’s the best feeling in the world when he’s filled with that feeling again – the feeling of not being alone in his own head. Cas’s presence is a flickering light on the edge of his mind and it sucks the tension out of him. For the first time in years, Dean actually relaxes. For the first time in his _life_ , he leaves himself completely open. The only thing he hides is that burning feeling in his chest, the one that warms him from the inside out. He doesn’t want to share that with Cas so soon, especially if it’s not something that Cas wants to feel from him just yet.

That ends up being pretty much useless because Cas has so many walls up that Dean can’t feel a damn thing from him. All he has is that sensation of other, the feeling of someone else there. Cas isn’t sharing any emotions. The kin-connection is so full of barricades that everything Dean is letting out there isn’t even getting through. He can feel the relief and the happiness and all breaking like waves against a cliff. If he wasn’t at least sort of expecting that, he’d might actually be disappointed that Cas isn’t letting him feel _anything_.

Dean isn’t prepared for the almost _shy_ words that slip around the walls. _(Hello, Dean.)_

He can’t help the sharp breath he takes. It’s – fuck. Dean can’t even describe just how good it feels to have Cas even _talk_ to him. After calming down the crazy little jig his heart is pretty damned determined to do, Dean answers him. _(Hi, Cas.)_

It’s more than a little satisfying when the ruffled fans along Cas’s tail rustle. A physical reaction to him just _talking_ is always a good sign. Right? At least Dean thinks so. He shifts a little nervously and gestures over his shoulder. _(D’you – Would you like to come in?)_

 _(I would, thank you.)_ Cas turns around to grab a plastic bag and hold it out to him. _(If you carry this, I can manage the stairs.)_

Jesus Christ. That’s the bag that the picture frame had been in. It’s ballooned with water, but Dean can make out the hard edge of the frame instead of it and Cas kept it. He actually fucking _kept it_. The bag and the frame and that makes Dean almost deliriously happy. Cas even still has the belt for his weapons. He kept everything that Dean gave him and it’s – he has to fight to keep himself from grinning like a maniac the whole way inside.

Once they’re all sitting on the couches in the living room, Cas can’t stop looking around, eying the TV and the shelves and the hallway and just _everything_. The silence gets awkward then because what the hell are they supposed to talk about? What happened earlier today? The last three years? What actually _happened_? How are they supposed to even bring that up?

Jess, like the Goddess she is, breaks the tension. She directs the conversation to what happened today and Dean kind of wants to kiss her for it. Dean fists his hand in the leg of his sweat pants when he asks Cas about the fin-kin with the sword.

 _(Raphael.)_ Cas answers, pushing a clear image of a dark skinned fin-kin into the kin-connection for all of them to see while he tries undoing the knot on the plastic bag. _(He’s one of the older council members. He thought I betrayed the colony because I sang the bonding-song to a human and that I left without a word to follow the song.)_ He lifts his head suddenly. _(Oh, that reminds me.)_

Cas leans across the couch without another word and punches Dean in the shoulder. It’s not exactly a hard hit, but why the hell is he hitting him? Dean doesn’t even need words or emotions to show Cas how fucking confusing that is.

 _(That’s from Anna. For choosing_ that _song and sending the entire colony into a panic.)_ He explains after sitting back and curling his tail comfortably again.

“See? Didn’t I tell you to pick something else?” Sam sounds way too smug and he makes a note to put Nair in his shampoo again when he glares at him and all Sam does is smirk.

“If your colony is freaking out, why aren’t you there dealing with them?” Jess asks the question everyone is thinking. She asks the question that Dean is too afraid to ask.

Cas rips open the bag with his claws, not even looking up. _(Because the council has already met and I’ve been exiled –)_

Dean’s guilt skyrockets. All he wanted to do was find Cas and talk to him again and instead he got him fucking _exiled_ from his home. This is all his fault and Sam was right. Fuck, he was so right. He should have picked something else. But they had only a couple of Cas’s songs recorded and he wanted something that he could play his guitar to that would actually get Cas’s attention.

 _(_ Temporarily _.)_ Cas interjects when he looks up. _(It’s only for a rotation, and then I can go home again.)_

He can’t even look at Cas right now. Even if the guilt evaporated, now it’s replaced with a disappointed and kind of panicky feeling. Cas is going to leave soon. What was a rotation again? Something like a week? He’s got Cas for a week and then he’ll leave again.

There’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to fix anything between them over a few days. That’s not even considering if Cas _wants_ to fix this. Dean doesn’t know a damn thing about what Cas actually wants. Cas has so much of himself blocked and Dean only has a week to talk with him. He’s got one week to have all the kinds of conversations that stress him out – the kind that make him supremely uncomfortable. He’s got one week to find out if Cas still wants him.

Can he work with that?

He can damn well try.

Cas is worth it.


	43. Battle Scar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place between Chapter 42.**

Dean knows what he said, but he doesn't really _know_ what he said. At least, he doesn't know what he said to make Cas get so clingy. He's holding on tighter than he has since they met again, practically burrowing his face into the curve of Dean's throat. It's easy enough to ignore the stubble burn because Cas is curling his tail around his waist, squeezing tight around his shoulders with his arms. And he'll be damned if he isn't going to hold him back just as tight.

He doesn't give a shit about how hard it's going to be to open the doors and take the stairs with Cas holding on like this. He'll just go slow. Besides, the longer it takes him to get to the dock, the longer he gets to hold Cas like this. Who knows how long before Cas changes his mind and stops wanting to hug him. This closeness with Cas is something Dean's been craving for years. No matter how many people he took back to his room – and sent away when he just couldn't do it – none of them could hold a candle to hugging Cas.

They were too warm, too angular, too soft, too hairy or thin or muscular. They were too _not Cas_ – and Dean just couldn't bring himself to be with someone while thinking of someone else. It's not fair to them, even if they were only going to be a one night fling. That's just not how he rolls.

By the time he does make it down to the dock, his arms are starting to hurt. He's been lifting weights on and off since he started looking for Cas again, but that still doesn't compare to the weight of fully grown dude with a tail chock full of muscles. Dean expects Cas to uncurl the moment they're on the dock, but Cas actually _tightens_ his arms. The kin-connection doesn't have any of his emotions in it right now now, but Dean can put two and two together pretty easily and if Cas doesn't want to let go then there's pretty much nothing on Earth that could get him to let go too.

It's a bit of an effort to sit down and the water is sun-warm when he puts his feet in. Cas shifts in his lap, tail curling more comfortably around his hips until he can twitch the end against his thigh. Dean doesn't hide how happy he is to have this again – even if it's just for right now. It's why he wraps his arms more securely around Cas, pressing his cheek against his gills. This is great, this is _progress_ and this whole 'being open' thing is really working wonders. He should have tried it years ago.

 _(I missed this.)_ He pushes the thought into the kin-connection and not caring that it's wrapped in regret too. Because he _does_ regret it. Everything that he did. Even if he probably wouldn't be here now if he hadn't made the choices he did, he regrets losing three years that he could have had with Cas. _(I missed you, Cas. I missed you so much.)_

That confession gets Dean a small hummed noise and Cas nudges his nose under his jaw. Cas doesn't say anything and there's nothing in the kin-connection, but if Dean's memory serves right, that sound is a good one. At least it feels like a good one, and Cas isn't pulling away so that's a bonus. But Dean really wants to see his face. He wants to see what he can read in Cas's eyes and mouth and God help him, maybe Cas will let him kiss him again.

Dean leans away slowly, hating ever new inch between them – but it lets him touch Cas again. His hands slide over the small of his back, passing over the angled, thinning edges of his dorsal fans where they come to and end just before the scales of his tail blend into his skin. Cas doesn't stop him from palming his hips, tracing the jut of bone with his fingertips. He's not expecting to feel the skin change into a rough, jagged line.

_(What the hell is this?)_

Cas pulls back more, shifting and turning to give Dean a good look of the white scar that's really not all that visible unless you're looking for it, but Dean still can't believe he didn't notice it before. It curves around his hip, almost just like the one Dean has on his left side. The ruffled fans along his tail flutter slightly as Dean traces the edge of it.

 _(A battle scar.)_ He practically shrugs while looking down at it. _(It was deep enough to leave a scar, but otherwise it doesn't bother me.)_

The memory he shares of how he got it makes Dean want to throw up. Something tight settles in his throat, a solid lump that makes it hard to breathe as the world suddenly feels way too cold and way too small. Cas doesn't have any scars from his time on Lilith's boat. Everything healed and it healed _fast_. Hickeys last a day, maybe too, on him. For something to have to _scar_ him – it would have to be deep. He's going to be sick. Fucking Christ, he's going to be sick.

 _(What's wrong?)_ Cas asks, tilting his head.

Dean can barely get the thoughts out of his own head. _(You – Cas, you got_ hurt _. Was it – did you – could you have –)_ No, he can't even think it. Thinking about it means acknowledging that it was a possibility and Dean can't face that. He can't.

Cas doesn't say anything. He curls against Dean's chest and pushes his nose up under the hinge of his jaw again. Dean can't help the little broken noise he gasps against Cas's shoulder, hugging him as tightly as he can. Three years and it never occurred to him that Cas was going back to a war where there was every chance that he could die. He'd thought that maybe Cas would have moved, either moved on from _him_ or physically moved with the colony. But he'd never, not ever, thought that Cas might have _died._

 _(I'm fine, Dean.)_ Cas reaches up to run a hand through his hair, the other settling on the back of Dean's neck. _(The healers barely even kept me in the caves for more than a few days. There's nothing to worry about.)_

It's kind of a little amazing that Cas knows what's wrong without Dean even saying anything. But that doesn't make Dean feel any better. That sound pulls out of him again and it's the closest to a sob that he's going to get, shoulders shaking with the effort to just _breathe_ and not be physically sick at just the idea that he could have lost Cas forever and he never would have known. Cas would have been dead and Dean would have believed that he just didn't want to see him again or that his colony had moved away.

 _(You could have_ died _, Cas. I could have lost you and I never wouldn't –)_

No. No, no, no. Fuck that. He's not going to think about it. Dean has Cas here. Cas is alive and well, breathing and touching and trying to be comforting with touch alone because Dean hasn't earned back the rest. He still has to work up to that and by the ever loving creators of pie, Dean is going to do that just. Because Cas is worth it. He always has been and Dean's biggest regret is always going to be realizing that too late.


	44. The Reason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place between Chapter 42.**

_(Why did you come back?)_

The question is like a punch to the gut and it pushes all the air out of Dean’s lungs. He stares across the couch at Cas and it’s a double hit combo when he sees all that _hope_. Cas’s emotions might be cut out of the kin-connection, but Dean can still read him. He’s always been good with body language and the way that Cas’s hands curl in the in the towel, the way the question sounds almost desperate – Cas needs _the_ answer. He needs to hear everything that Dean hates having to say – all the stuff that took Dean having to write an entire fucking book to figure out.

When he left Cas three years ago, Dean knew how he felt for him. There was zero doubt about just how deep Cas dug himself into Dean. It hurt more having to break Cas’s heart than it did to get stabbed. One of his biggest regrets over the last few years was how little time he actually had with Cas. And that’s part of the reason he’s here again. He wants more time with him. He wants as much time with Cas as he can possibly get – the rest of his life if he can. That’s what Dean wants. 

And he hopes to hell that Cas wants that too.

Now Dean does have Cas back. He’s right there in front of him, practically begging for Dean to say the one thing that he hasn’t said to a single person since in nearly eight years. That’s what Cas needs to hear. He needs to know _why_ Dean went to all these lengths to find him again. Three words. It’s just going to take three little words to let Cas know. Except it’s never been about words with Cas. There’s so much more to the way they communicate than that 

But that’s almost worse than having to say it. If he doesn’t use the words, he has to open himself up to Cas like he never has before. Even if the kin-connection on his side has less walls than it ever has, there’s still that one last dam holding back the one thing he’s pretty sure is what Cas wants. It’s what Cas needs to feel, needs to hear, just so he can _understand._ It just means Dean has to open himself up completely, and for Cas – For Cas, he can do that. 

Dean rearranges how he’s sitting and gets his hands on his ankle, squeezing it like some kind of security blanket. It kinda hurts a little and that’s good, that’s grounding everything else and making it easier to just let it all go. One deep breath and he drops that last wall. He doesn’t even try to stop all that pulsing, burning _heat_ in his chest. Everything that he feels for Cas, everything that’s been building over the last three years, he lets it all crash into the kin-connection and he can _see_ the way it affects Cas. 

It starts with the ruffled fans along Cas’s tail. They don’t get quite the rippling effect that they do when Cas is in the water and they don’t have gravity keeping them weighed down in folds, but they manage to get a little rustling going on while his fins flex and twitch, spreading and folding and trembling. Cas starts gasping for breath, his gill fluttering against his neck while he tries to just _breathe_. He wasn’t prepared for it, obviously, and Dean kind of feels a little smug about that. It’s pretty hard to surprise someone when they’re literally in your head. 

But Cas isn’t breathing right, his gasps are painful but he’s not actually hurt. Cas is floundering like a fish out of water, like he’s overwhelmed by everything Dean’s flooding the entire kin-connection with. And all that matters right now is that Cas _can’t breathe_. His confession is completely throwing Cas off. Dean is across the couch in a heartbeat, hands firmly clamped over his gills to keep them down so every gasp actually gets air to his lungs. 

Dean focuses on reeling back a little, raising the dam again until there’s just a waterfall of heat pouring through it and carving a path through the kin-connection like a river. It takes Cas a few moments to recover and his hands shake when he reaches up to hold Dean’s wrists, squeezing tightly. 

_(Why did you come back?)_

He smiles and he really can’t help it. Cas needs the words, not just the feeling. He’s being greedy and he wants more and yeah, Dean can do that. It surprises him how easy it is. This is what Cas needs right now and then – Jesus, Dean doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, but he hopes that it’ll be enough for Cas right now. It’s what he’s been living off of for the last years and a bit, so hope is nothing new to him. 

His eyes drop to Dean’s lips when he says it. “Because I need you, Cas.” The translation he puts into the kin-connection is wrapped with every ounce of that heat in his chest as he can put into it. 

Cas just stares at him, eyes wide like he doesn’t quite believe it. There’s still nothing in the kin-connection from him yet, but he’s been using this thing his entire life so it’s no surprise that he’s better at keeping things under wraps even when he’s been knocked for a loop. But then Cas makes a noise, like a little happy-desperate cry, before he’s pressing up against Dean again, just like he used to. It’s a blast from the past as he shoves his face against Dean’s neck and hugs him as tight as he can.

Dean can’t help grinning. If that had been the wrong answer, he’d be taking Cas out into the cove right now instead of lying back against the couch and stretching out with Cas over him. This is familiar and nostalgic and he’ll be damned if he’s not going to take every chance he has right now to touch Cas as much as he fucking can, running his hands down Cas’s back and pressing his fingers in where the webbing meets his skin. He remembers that Cas fucking loved that feeling and it’s awesome being able to give him that and feel Cas start relaxing against him. 

“Again.” Cas’s voice rumbles against his throat and it tickles a little. 

He could just say those three words again. But it feels like there’s more that Dean has to say than just that andf if he’s ever going to tell Cas about it all, then it’s going to be right now while he still has the chance to say it. 

_(I came back because I knew you for a month and after a year and a half you were still buried deep enough under my skin that I spent almost everything I had to find you.)_ That won’t mean much to Cas since he doesn’t exactly have a concept of money, but the thought still counts. _(I came back because it was two and a half years and I still wanted you. I came back because I want to be with you.)_ He lets the damn break just a little more. _(I came back because I need you.)_

The end of Cas’s tail wiggles around his ankle again, holding tight. _(Again.)_

It would take a stronger man than Dean to resist turning his head so his mouth is against Cas’s temple. “I need you, Cas.”

Saying it gets easier every time and Dean’s not sure why he didn’t say it back then. Maybe none of this would have happened as long as Cas knew how he really felt three years ago. No, it probably would have just hurt him more for when Dean _did_ do what he did. It was necessary. The colony needed to be kept safe and he couldn’t let Crowley anywhere near them and he couldn’t do that to Cas, make him _less_. He just couldn’t. 

Jess and Sam come down awhile later and Dean barely pays any attention to them. He’s too focused on memorizing the way Cas fits against his side and the cool skin under his arm, and the scales against his legs and the way he breathes and smells and sounds whenever he murmurs ‘again’. Fuck, he missed Cas so much. Dean knows he doesn’t quite have him back entirely. Not yet. Cas’s walls are still up and keeping him out, but right now Dean thinks it’s just a matter of time before he gets those to fall. 

_(Ignore them.)_ He muffles a laugh into Cas’s hair when he keeps moving to look up whenever Sam or Jess peeks around the doorway into the kitchen. _(They’re just heating up leftovers and being nosy bastards.)_

_(But why?)_

_(Because we’re sitting like this and we haven’t told them why.)_

Cas hums quietly and Dean can feel the rumble of it against his shoulder. Chills chase down his spine when Cas tilts his head and his nose pressed up under Dean’s jaw. The first time he started doing that three years ago, it was kinda ticklish and weird. Now Dean loves it and he’s more than happy to tilt back to give Cas the room to rub and nuzzle wherever he wants. It just gives him the excuse to run his hands through Cas’s hair as a kind of encouragement. 

_(And why do you think that we’re sitting this way?)_

Wow. That’s a loaded question and it chases away all the good mojo feelings Dean had going. He was kinda satisfied with this little bit of nirvana they had going before they were going to have to get back to the heavy conversation stuff again. Of course he knows that they _have_ to talk about everything at some point, he just would’ve liked to stay this way for a little while longer. 

Dean bites his bottom lip and shifts a little. There’s no way he’s not worried about the next bit they’ve got to talk about, but he’s also pretty damn hopeful. How can he not be with how they’re sitting like this? Cas has been holding back in more than just a kin-connection and it’s like the cuddling is a small victory that Dean doesn’t want to move past just yet to face the next challenge. 

_(I – We’re –)_ Shit. _(I don’t know, Cas.)_ Stay calm. That’s the key. He’s a big boy and he can talk about this without sounding like a bitter little bitch about anything because he’s not. _(I know what_ I _want, but you’re still hiding everything from me. I don’t know what_ you _want.)_

Cas tenses up against his side. Maybe this is a topic he doesn’t want to talk about either? Maybe Cas doesn’t have an answer at all yet. Dean doesn’t know and he’s just going to have to lay here and wait to find out what Cas wants right now. He’s not going to be selfish and fight for an answer. After what he did, Dean doesn’t deserve that. Everything is all Cas here and Dean can only wait.

When the walls slip around Cas’s mind, Dean wants to jump up and dance. Even though what comes through the kin-connection is worry and all that _hurt_ and everything Cas had been feeling the day Dean shoved him off the boat. All those feelings close up Dean’s throat and make it hard to breath. It hurts on a physical level he didn’t know possible because _he_ did that to Cas. He made Cas hurt like that and it makes Dean want to curl up in a hole and never come out ever again. 

At the same time, he can’t do anything but hold Cas tighter and shove as much of his apologies and heat into the kin-connection as he can. There’s next to nothing else in his life that he regrets more than what he did three years ago. It had hurt like a bitch for him then, and it hurts like a bitch now knowing how Cas had felt so abandoned and heart broken and Dean doesn’t even have _words_ for half of those feelings but they fucking _hurt_. 

Cas raises the walls again slowly and Dean doesn’t try to stop him. If he’s not ready to share everything with him again just yet, then he’s not going to fight it. There’s all that trust left that Dean has to earn back before he even thinks of finding out if Cas still loves him. Lying on the couch together like this doesn’t mean shit when it comes to Cas’s feelings. He was an octopus before when it came to cuddling and Dean really doesn’t expect him to be any different now. 

But then _something_ brushes against the edge of his mind. It’s shy and so fucking warm it surprises Dean so hard he nearly falls off the couch. It’s everything he was so worried Cas wouldn’t feel anymore and Dean can’t help focusing on the ribbon of the kin-connection that glows white-hot with it. He can’t help grabbing at it and pulling it into the empty space in his chest where all of the heat Cas used to share belongs. Dean locks it up there and throws away the key, keeping it for escaping and letting it be like a mini furnace behind his sternum. There’s no telling when Cas will share that again, or if he ever will and Dean wants to hoard it like Smaug in the Lonely Mountain. 

He basks in the glow of that heat until he realizes that Cas is smiling against his collarbone and it’s the greatest feeling in the world to know even after everything that he did, Dean can still make Cas smile. Dean lets things settle again before he picks up where he sort of left off. This means that it’s going to get serious again and they need to be face to face for this to happen. 

Dean starts thinking at Cas as he starts to sit up. _(I understand, Cas, I do. I hurt you and you’ve forgiven me but that doesn’t mean that you’re ready to trust me again.)_

There’s a growl somewhere in Cas’s throat as he’s forced to move. Even then he doesn’t move far, sitting between Dean’s legs. And he doesn’t stop _touching_. Cas’s hand ends up on Dean’s calf, tracing the tattoos and Dean has to keep from grinning like a maniac. He didn’t think that Cas would be so fascinated with them but he’s loving it anyways while he continues. 

_(I always figured – if I ever found you and you were willing to even talk to me – that I’d broken that. And I’m ready, Cas.)_ He smiles, filling the kin-connection with his determination. 

Cas just frowns at him, tilting his head. _(Ready for what?)_

 _(To make it up to you. To earn your trust back.)_ He leans forward to put his hands on Cas’s tail so he can look him in the eye and make sure that he knows just how serious Dean is. _(This is my home now. What happens from here on out is entirely up to you. My life is in a great place right now and I want to share it with you.)_ Dean has to fight the urge to crawl into Cas’s lap and get as close as he physically can while saying this next bit. _(I mean it, Cas. I’m not going anywhere.)_

And God help him, he _does_ mean it.


	45. All Of You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 42.**

Sam disappears up the stairs and Dean almost thinks that he can tell through the kin-connection when Cas actually cuts it with him and Jess. It’s like Cas’s thoughts get sharper and more focused on him when he’s not connected with anyone else. Dean kind of likes how it makes him feel a little special to have all of Cas’s attention on him and no one else.

He doesn’t really hide any of these thoughts from Cas. If he’s going the _all or nothing_ route, then Dean needs to be straight up with Cas right from the start. Which means he’s definitely letting Cas feel every single nervous twist in his chest that he might not be good enough to win the colony over too. How’s he supposed to convince them that he’s one of the good guys when he still feels like the scummiest scum to ever scum for everything that he put Cas through?

Dean catches Cas tilting his head out of the corner of his eye. _(Is there anything else that you would like to know? While we’re more or less on the topic?)_

There are probably a million more questions Dean could ask, but right now he just wants to relax. If he doesn’t do that, he might not be able to sleep tonight. Already every little fiber of his being feels like it’s buzzing with energy and his stomach is too twisted up in knots for him to even think about going to bed right now.

 _(Nothing I can think of.)_ He drums his fingers on Cas’s tail and tries not to get distracted by how good it feels to have him being all cuddly again. _(I’m not all that sleepy yet. You want to go swimming?)_

That was apparently the best thing that he could have possibly said. Cas sits up straight and all his fins flare out. His eyes go wide and bright like he’s a kid who just got offered the key to the candy store. All those walls Cas has been keeping around his head slip just enough for a whole storm of excitement to leak out into the kin-connection. Yeah, Dean’s going to take all of this as one hell of a resounding _yes_.

“Let me up so I can go get changed and then we’ll go.” He grins and pats Cas’s tail.

Cas uncurls from around him quickly, tucking his tail beneath himself to sit up a little higher on it. Dean tries to change quickly in the bedroom, but his hands shake a little while he tightens the ties on his swim trunks. This might change something between them tonight. To Cas, swimming together is probably something Dean’s equivalent of working on his car together. He’d be out of his head with happiness if Cas ever expressed any kind of interest in his baby. But this is different. Swimming is just as much a part of Cas as breathing is.

He remembers to grab a couple towels before he leaves the bedroom and Cas’s fins twitch and flare again. If he stared any more obviously, Cas might actually put a hole through Dean’s chest. Okay, so maybe Cas wasn’t exactly ready for the whole shirtless thing. Dean could still go put on a t-shirt, but that’s just going to weigh him down and make things a lot less fun. He waits a moment to see if Cas is going to ask him to cover up, but all Cas does is lick his lips and look away.

Well, that’s a green light if ever Dean saw one. Though it’s kind of tentative. Cas doesn’t look at Dean when he hands him the towels, and he squeezes his eyes shut when Dean picks him up. There’s something going on behind those mental walls of his and Dean doesn’t know what it is but he won’t question it. If whatever Cas is doing is helping him get used to any kind of situation with him again, then Dean is all for it.

The night air is warm and its breeze cool. Dean likes it. He thought it would take forever to adjust to living out here, but he was totally wrong. The summer heat isn’t so bad when he has air conditioning to take the edge off. With Cas being the world’s best glowstick, Dean makes it down the stairs without any troubles and doesn’t even slip off the dock when he crouches to put Cas down.

Once they’re not touching anymore, Cas opens his eyes and looks up. The sky is definitely one of the best perks about this place. There were tons of nights that he slept on the beach outside of his tent just so he could watch the stars until he fell asleep. Cas looks at the stars and the moon before he finally looks at him again. Dean likes that wide-eyed, awestruck thing that Cas has going. It reminds him of when he was teaching Cas everything he could back on the boats. Neither of them had good experiences there, but it wasn’t _all_ bad.

“Just leave the towels there.” Dean gestures down at the dock before stretching his arms above his head until his spine pops. Shit, that feels good.

He gives Cas a teasing grin before he dives off the dock. Dean’s done this a thousand times over the last few years but this is the first time he’s done it with Cas watching. It feels… _different_. He’s more nervous about this swim than the first time he took a lap around this cove without knowing what exactly was under the waves.

Cas is right behind him, slipping through the water with the kind of ease Dean can only ever dream of having. He sucks in a breath and dives as deep as he can as soon as Cas gets close. Something a hell of a lot like delight echoes through the kin-connection as Cas twists after him. No matter how hard he tries, Dean can’t stay ahead of Cas. It’s a teasing game that Cas plays while he swims circles around him, fingers or scales dragging over the tattoos on Dean’s legs. Sometimes he grabs Dean’s hands and pulls him back to the surface so he can breathe before he drags him back down to pull him around.

The longer they swim, the more Cas’s walls fall and he’s just so _happy_. Dean almost doesn’t even know how to deal with it, but there is literally nothing better than to hear Cas laugh loud enough for the cove to echo with it. He keeps grabbing Dean’s hands and putting them to his waist only to be a little shit and swim as fast as he can until Dean can’t hold on anymore. Every time Cas does that, he comes back to pull him under before starting it all over again.

If his arm hadn’t been broken back then, Dean’s pretty sure this is what every day would have been like for him and Cas on Crowley’s boat. He’d have probably ended up as some kind of super wrinkled prune, but it would’ve been worth it. Because Cas is still hiding so much of himself right now, but back then he wouldn’t have been. Back then Dean would’ve heard all that strained joy and it would’ve driven him. He can barely handle it now but it’s still the greatest thing he’s felt in _years_.

Dean holds his breath when Cas finally slows down. He knows the look Cas is giving him. It’s warm and soft and it’s how he used to look at him whenever he – Dean sucks in another sharp breath when Cas tangles his tail with his legs and his hand spread cool on his shoulder over the white scars he left on him. The only thing keeping them floating right now is Dean’s hands treading water and Cas’s ruffled fans rolling along the edges of his tail. Dean can feel them brushing his legs and it’s sending all sorts of pleasing chills all up and down his spine.

He knows what’s coming next. He knows and he _wants_ it so bad it hurts. Cas kisses him softly at first, just a touch, just a taste and Dean stops. Everything stops. His brain, his heart, his lungs, _everything_. God, he wants to hold him close and kiss him back just as hard as he fucking can but he _can’t_. Not yet. Not until those walls are down and Cas knows that Dean isn’t in this for just _this_. Sue him, but he’s going to be selfish. He wants everything before he – before _they_ can be like that again.

But that doesn’t mean he’s not going to at least enjoy this a little bit. Cas’s hands slip over to press his claws lightly into Dean’s back as he untangles his tail and starts guiding them back toward the dock. Dean doesn’t have to do anything but hold on, and he does with his fingers in Cas’s hair as he tries his damnedest not to give into that screaming _need_ ricocheting around inside his skull. Cas is trying – oh God, is he trying – to get a rise out of Dean. He’s trying to get him to do what he would’ve done three years ago and take for all he’s worth but that’s not who he is anymore. This time, Dean isn’t giving in until he knows neither one of them is going to be hurt like that again.

Cas makes a needy little noise before kissing harder and Dean’s will damn near crumbles right there. He tightens his fingers in Cas’s hair, trying to hold him back before he does something that completely shatters ever last resolution Dean has.

“Dean.” His name comes on a whisper against his lips and Dean can feel himself starting to lose his grip a little more. _(Stop holding back.)_

God, but he would if he could.


	46. Mistakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 44.**

Dean groans and slumps back against the side of the tub, hand still working lazily in his lap until he's too sensitive to keep going. Cas didn't say a word in the kin-connection the whole time and Dean isn't sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. All Cas's emotions are cut out and hidden from him. It's not completely closed or walled off, so he's still there and he's listening, but he's not _saying_ anything and that's kind of starting to freak Dean out.

What if Cas is freaking out? Or what if all of Dean's little fantasies right there got him all worked up and he's having his own little party in the bedroom? That thought shouldn't make him clean up faster, but it does. It might not be completely _right_ of him to want to see Cas like that again, but he does. Sweet Jesus, he does. After three years dreaming about having Cas like that again, how's he supposed to hold back when Cas might be doing that in the other room?

Cas is laying on his stomach, face buried in a pillow, when Dean peeks out of the bathroom. He's not exactly being sneaky, but Cas doesn't say anything. Hell, he doesn’t even move so it's a damn good bet that he’s not paying attention. At least he twitches and his dorsal fins spread wide when Dean crawls onto the bed. It’s a reaction, but what’s bugging him is that he doesn’t know if it’s good or bad.

“Cas?” He ask quietly, pressing more concern into the kin-connection and hoping to get some kind of reaction. _(Are you okay? Was that too much?)_

He takes a deep breath, shakes his head, and _still_ doesn’t move his face form the pillow. That’s not really helping convince him that Cas is okay. It’s doing the exact opposite. Dean concentrates on the kin-connection, reaching through it to sort through what little Cas is actually giving off. All he’s finding is little strands of _wantwantwant_ and a handful of other little thoughts that evaporate the moment he touches them.

Maybe Cas _did_ get turned on by everything and now he’s trying to will away his own hard on? He strokes his thumb against the splatter of scales on his shoulder at the beginning of one of his dorsal fins. _(Do you want me to step out and give you some time to take care of it? Or do you want to go swim? Will that help?)_ He’s still getting nothing. _(C’mon Cas, you’ve gotta talk to me here.)_

Dean gets about a second to notice that the pillow ends up on the other side of the room before he’s on his back and Cas is kissing him. The kin-connection is going insane with too much for him to really understand – _wantdeanwantwantdean_ – and Dean would really like to get lost in Cas’s kisses instead. He’s been kissing Cas again since yesterday and it’s better than he remembered. Even Cas having his claws doesn’t bother him. Every time they drag against his scalp, it sends shivers down his spine and if he hadn’t just come, he’d probably getting hard again now.

 _(Cas – Cas!)_ He’s trying to get him to pay attention, but it’s pretty fucking hard to keep his own thoughts in order when Cas keeps biting at his bottom lip and flicking his tongue against the roof of Dean’s mouth and how the hell is he supposed to push Cas away when he keeps rubbing against him? _(You need to – Cas,_ stop _. You’re –)_

Doomed. He’s doomed. This is fucking impossible. Dean can barely stop Cas from getting his hands in his boxers and he’s the worst kind of person for kissing back during all of this. He shouldn’t but he is and he can’t fucking help it, Cas tastes too good and Dean’s missed this. _Goddamn_ , he’s missed Cas so much. But he shouldn’t do this – but he can’t stop and there’s too much noise in the kin-connection for Cas to hear him. That _wantwantwant_ is still beating in the background, but there’s a louder thought going over all of it now.

_(I can’t – I can’t – I can’t –)_

If Cas can’t stop himself either than Dean has the be the one to do it and soon, before Cas gets his hand and those claws anywhere near his junk. The only thing that he can think of doing is tugging at Cas’s dorsal fins and glory hallelujah, it actually works and Cas pulls away hissing. It’s enough of a slip up for Dean to roll them and pin him by the wrists.

Cas keeps his eyes closed and it’s like he’s struggling to breathe. Dean lets him and makes sure Cas knows that he’s worried – especially when the kin-connection goes quiet while he hides the storm of thoughts that had been filling it.

 _(Deep breaths, Cas. In through the nose, out through the mouth. C’mon, just calm down.)_ Dean keeps talking, trying to calm him down. Maybe he needs a glass of water or something. That’s something you give people to help them calm down, right? _(I’m going to get you a glass of water. You’re gonna drink it, calm down, and then you can either tell me what the hell all that was about or we can go back to sleep. Okay?)_

The last thing Dean expects when Cas opens his eyes is to see _tears_ in them. It makes his chest actually hurt, ribs squeezing too tight around his lungs.

 _(No, not okay.)_ Cas’s thoughts rip into his head and they’re scared – scared, and desperate, and they cut into him. _(Don’t leave. Don’t leave me behind again, Please – don’t leave –)_

Oh no. No, no, no, no, _no_. Dean knew he’d hurt Cas but he’d never really realized just how badly it would have affected Cas. It’s his fault. Christ, he broke him. He fucking _broke_ Cas and it hurts. It’s like an actual throbbing _pain_ in his chest and he wraps Cas in his arms and presses his face into his hair.

“I’m not, Cas. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here with you.” He whispers and if Cas is willing Dean wants to spend the rest of his life proving it. 


	47. The Best Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 44.**

He rushes shopping. Dean’s not proud of it, but he does. After waving Sam and Jess off at the ferry docks, he had walked to the market studying his list and crossing out all the shit on it that he didn’t _need_ – unless it was something that Cas had asked for. The less time away from Cas, the better. There’s this – this _thing_ in his chest, like a knot just under his ribs and it keeps telling him to move faster, to _run_ , to get back before Cas disappears and Dean wakes up to find out this is all a dream and he actually hasn’t found him yet.

It’s why he throws the throttle into full on the way back, whipping between the islands until he finds the opening that leads into his cove. Really, he’s going to have to put up some kind of crossing arm or something with **private property** stamped across the front. Maybe **keep the fuck out** added for good measure. He could even get one of those novelty signs like that crap Bobby sometimes emails him. What’s it usually say? “Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.’? Something like that.

When Cas doesn’t swim up to the boat as soon as Dean’s out in the open, he sets a record on repeat in his head. Cas is in the house. He’s in the house. He’s not coming up to the boat not because he’s not here but because he’s in the damn house. Dean keeps telling himself that right up to the dock and while he’s tying it in place.

Since he decided he was going to find Cas again, Dean’s been lifting weights to prepare for having to haul his tail around everywhere. Part of that weight lifting has been carrying as many grocery bags as is physically possible up the stairs in one go. He puts that practice to good use now. There’s maybe eight, possibly ten, bags in total – not that Dean actually counted them – and the plastic handles dig into his wrists. It’s worth it. Less trips means less time away from Cas.

That tight, painful feeling in his chest only gets worse when he doesn’t hear any movement in the house and Cas isn’t in the living room – once he actually manages to get the door open and get inside. Cas doesn’t call for him either. The only thing keeping Dean from thinking that Cas is actually _gone_ is that his wheelchair isn’t outside anymore.

“Cas?” He calls out and hates how unsure he sounds.

“Dean.”

Bedroom. Why the hell didn’t he even consider the bedroom? He dumps the bags – they can be dealt with later – and goes to the door. Not even two seconds in sight of him and the kin-connection is already slipping into place between them. It’s like coming home – _again_. Cas looks comfortable, curled under the blankets in a semi-circle of pillows, eyes hooded and an easy little smile on his lips.

 _(Did you nap all morning?)_ He doesn’t bother holding back how relieved he is to see that Cas is still here. That ball of nerves grouped under his ribs lets go, replaced with a light, floating feeling that Dean is wholly unused to. It’s been way too long since he’s actually been _happy_.

 _(I explored for a bit.)_ Cas yawns and stretches out across the bed and Dean does not – does _not_ – hate the blanket for covering up most of him and hiding all the good stuff. Some of Dean’s favourite past times is watching Cas stretch – for a variety of reasons. _(Are you aware that you own enough towels to supply the colony?)_ He curls up again and looks slightly more awake. _(Stairs are hard and I’m not used to pushing the wheels. I decided to nap.)_

 _(Good, I was worried you were going to get bored.)_ Dean’s smile has a mind of its own and he really can’t bring himself to care – and he’s definitely not telling Cas that he was more worried he might not be here when he got back. _(I’m just going to put the groceries away and then we can do whatever you want. Movies, pie, talking, kissing, whatever.)_

Cas just hums, watching him from the bed. Dean isn’t expecting that _heat_ to press through the kin-connection, lazy and bright before Cas hides it from him again. It leaves Dean torn between feeling really happy to have had it again even for a brief moment, and fighting back bitter disappointment that Cas is still shielding it. After last night, he’s really not surprised.

 _(First kisses. Then I would like to watch the last movie from last night.)_ Cas tilts his head out of the blankets and there’s a small smile in his eyes and curling the corners of his lips. _(You should hurry or I might fall asleep again.)_

Like Dean needs anymore motivation. He doesn’t even bother taking things out of the bags. They get shoved into their corresponding cupboards – or fridge – recklessly and Dean can damn well deal with them later when he doesn’t have a fin-kin waiting for make-outs. He’s back and in bed with Cas in what might even be under two minutes and he’s slipping under the covers and tangling up with him like it’s the most normal thing – the best thing – in the world.

And it is. It really, really is. 


	48. Worth It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 45.**

Dean's lips still tingle and he can taste Cas on his tongue. Add that to the hope and love Cas is slowly letting into the kin-connection and it's the best fucking feeling in pretty much forever. The only thing that could make this _better_ right now is sex and, surprisingly, he doesn't actually want it at the moment. There's a different craving pulling at him and it's one Dean's had since the dawn of time.

“You ready to make pie now?”

Cas tilts his head, fins twitching and flaring out. _(If you're using that as a euphemism, I don't think you'll like my answer.)_

It takes him a stupid amount of time to realize that Cas is joking. He's making an actual fucking joke and Dean loses it, dropping his head to muffles his laughs with Cas's shoulder. Smug pride sweeps through the kin-connection, like this is the single greatest thing Cas has ever done. Dean kisses him the moment he's got his laughter under control again. It's just a quick one, before he rolls off him and the couch.

“C'mon, let's go make some pie. You still have to taste test which fruit we should make it out of.”

Sure enough, Cas likes apple best and that's five bucks Sam owes him. He never should've doubted Dean. There's only a handful of things in this world that Dean knows almost better than he knows himself. The top three are Cas, his car, and _pie_. Of course he'd be better than Sam at guessing which one Cas likes. And seriously, who the hell doesn't like apple pie? Crazy people. That's who.

Cas is pretty much the most diligent stirrer Dean's ever seen. He works at it with a single minded intensity that really reminds Dean a lot of when they're having sex. Those thoughts get shoved out of his head as soon as they arrive because there is _no way_ that he is going to start thinking about that after what happened last night. It doesn't matter if Cas was okay with a few more hickeys earlier. Dean needs to not think about sex with Cas if he's going to be able to hold out until Cas is ready again – and he hopes to flaky pie heaven that that's a 'when' and not an 'if'.

While everything sets like the recipe says it should, Dean takes Cas outside and they swim for a while. It's fun, lazy, interesting and Dean loves every fucking second of it. A swimming Cas is still one of the most gorgeous things Dean's ever seen – all confident bend and roll of muscles and scales. It's really his element and Dean wishes he could've found – or afforded – some way to incorporate more water into the house for him. Like tunnels of water that connect the rooms, a whole room that's nothing but a tank. But he couldn't do that. It reminded Dean too much of the tank on Lilith's boat and he'd burned the first floor plan he came up with that tried to have all that stuff. Instead, he decided on a design that would better suit someone in a wheelchair.

Maybe one day he'll be able to remodel the house, include a pool of some kind in the living room for Cas and his siblings to chill in while they watch TV. He could always add an extension to the house towards the beach or something to make up for it. There was no point in doing that right away when the house was first built, since there was no guarantee that they'd find Cas. Now all he's waiting for before he thinks about doing that again is to find out if Cas will be able to stay or not.

Dean starts making supper once they're inside again and he's changed. He pulls out the fat fryer for the french fries and explains to Cas how it works. “I should probably be baking the fries so you can have more, but it's a special occasion, so I'll fry them this once and you're only going to get a little bit.”

Cas fixes him with a thin lipped pout. _(But I want more than a little bit.)_

“And I don't want to kill you with food your system isn't used to.” He shrugs and gets the ground beef. Pre-made patties are for wimps. Dean Winchester makes everything from scratch, dammit. “I want you to live a good long life, so you're just going to have to suck it up.” This is one of the few issues he will not budge on and no dirty glare or unhappy flare through the kin-connection is going to make him change his mind. Luckily for him, Cas isn't actually upset. He just sits back and listens as Dean launches into talking about the hamburgers and his process for making them. Cas likes learning and Dean figures, maybe one day, he'll be making them too. There's something else tickling along the edge of the kin-connection, like Cas is thinking about something else too. Dean doesn't ask about it. If it's something Cas wants him to know about, he'll tell him eventually.

As it turns out, 'eventually' is apparently five minutes later.

“Dean.”

He glances over his shoulder, hands pausing while forming a meat patty. “Yeah?”

Cas kinda waves his hand toward the sink. _(Wash your hands and come here.)_

“What for?”

The fans along his tail ripple slightly. _(Do it, please.)_

One hand wash and dry later and Dean is lifting Cas out of the chair with an arm around his waist and another under his tail – like Cas is practically sitting on his arm. “What's up, Cas?”

Kisses. Apparently kisses are what's up and Dean is one hundred percent completely down with that. Especially the kind that has Cas's tongue flicking against the roof of his mouth, teeth catching at his lips while his fingers tangle in Dean's hair and his tail wraps around him in the best full body hug he's ever gotten. It takes him a moment to get his thoughts from _holyshit_ to _hellyes_ and then he's giving back as good as he's getting, flooding the kin-connection with all the heat burning in his chest.

When Cas pulls away, he's actually smiling with lips and eyes and everything. It's nothing huge by the usual standard, but with Cas it's massive. Dean puts him back in the wheel chair slowly. “Am I allowed to know what that was all about?

Cas just hums and now some of the heat and the happiness in the kin-connection isn't all just Dean's. _(You are.)_

He waits a beat for the rest of it. When it doesn't come, Dean tilts his head. “Well?”

 _(That's the answer. You are. This is too.)_ Cas waves his arms like he's gesturing at the whole house. _(All of it is.)_

Yeah, no. He's not getting what he means. “Cas, buddy, you lost me.”

Cas smiles again and twists the end of his tail around Dean's leg. _(Worth it. No matter what happens when I go back, this is worth it.)_

No question about it, that's the best damn thing Dean's heard all day. It feels like someone took out all his blood, replaced it with helium, and he's going to float the fuck away. Dean almost ends up crawling into Cas's lap with how hard he starts kissing him. He has to hold the chair instead of putting his hands on Cas – anywhere, everywhere – to keep it from rolling away. It takes him a long time to come back down and he crouches to rest his head almost in Cas's lap, breathing hard against his scales.

Eventually he does manage to learn how to talk again. “What does that mean for us?”

More of that warmth – that _love_ – of Cas's leaks into the kin-connection and Cas's runs a hand through Dean's hair. _(It means that you're winning. It means that there's no 'if' I'll ever be able to trust you again, it's only a 'when'. And that might be sooner than either of us thinks.)_


	49. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 46.**

It’s the whimpers that wake him.

Dean peels open his eyes and stares at the ceiling until his brain is more or less functioning. He goes from zero to sixty the moment another little moan vibrates against his shoulder. It may have been years since he saw Cas last, but he’s got every one of the noises he makes memorized. And that? _That_ was not one of the good ones. The kin-connection is still all fogged up and half-hidden, like Dean’s used to it being when Cas is asleep, but there’s a few emotions leaking through and he knows they’re not his.

With a little maneuvering, Dean manages to worm his arm out from under Cas’s head. It makes Cas roll onto his back and it’s the first Dean sees of the scrunched, unhappy face Cas is making. It’s pinched and he almost looks like he’s in pain. The first twitch starts with Cas’s tail around his leg. It tightens for a brief second and Dean immediately sits up and untangles himself. The last thing he needs is for Cas to carry around the guilt that he broke Dean’s ankle while sleeping.

He gets out of the way just in time, narrowly avoiding as Cas slaps a hand down on the mattress. One arm is looped over his stomach still, fingers twitching against the opposite hip. His tail starts swishing across the bed right and more of those little sounds claw their way out of his throat. Dean hates them. Cas sounds hurt and scared and it’s making Dean’s stomach drop somewhere near the bottom of the cove. He can’t stand it and he reaches out, intent on shaking his shoulder to start waking him up.

Getting bitch slapped through the kin-connection is never something he’s prepared for. Everything is dark and confusing and the walls are too close. Colours come in flashes – fire and smoke, white coats and dead eyes, _Dean’s eyes_. He struggles against it, trying not to get weighed down. It’s a nightmare, nothing more than that and he needs to wake Cas up before he hurts himself – or ends up hurting Dean.

The whimpers start again and Cas tosses his head, fingers curling in the sheets just before his arms twitch again – and they’re a lot closer to a fucking _flail_ this time. At least it doesn’t make any sick kind of sound when Cas’s claws catch and rip a couple two inch gashes across his stomach. Sound or not, that doesn’t change that Cas is now _bleeding_ , red pooling on his belly.

Seeing that does something to Dean, something he hasn’t felt in years. It’s a steady, deathly calm that blankets all other emotions. There’s nothing else in his head except keeping Cas from doing that again. It’s a blur getting from where he is on the other side of the bed to straddling Cas’s hips and pinning his wrists to the bed, pressing them down beside his shoulders. All it takes is Cas’s name, said once, and a sharp pull at the ribbons of the kin-connection through the fog, to get Cas to wake up.

Panic crashes into the kin-connection as soon as Cas’s eyes pop open and tears start tracking down the sides of his face and over his head-fins. He’s breathing too heavy, and Dean tries to sort through the clouds in the link to get calm across to him.

 _(C’mon, Cas. Just breathe. In and out.)_ He rubs his thumbs against Cas’s wrists, trying to soothe him. _(That’s right, just relax. It was only a nightmare.)_

It’s working for a few minutes until Cas’s eyes manage to get a fraction wider and he starts trying to sit up. Dean’s hands are on his shoulders and pushing him back down before he can make what he did to his stomach any worse. “Don’t move.”

 _(But you –)_ Cas isn’t looking at Dean’s face. He’s looking at his neck, his shoulders, his chest – eyes jumping from one place to another and Dean catches on quick enough. He thinks _Dean’s_ hurt.

“Don’t move or you’re gonna hurt yourself more.” He pushes down more forcefully until Cas gets the message, throwing a couple images of the scratches on his stomach into the kin-connection. “Just stay here and let me go get the first aid kid.”

Of course Cas doesn’t listen. Dean hears him move the moment he’s out of sight. He doesn’t let that annoy him until he’s back in the room and Cas isn’t just looking, he’s _touching_ too. There’s no stopping all his annoyed feelings from flickering into the kin-connection as he pulls Cas’s hands away and has him lay down again.

Cas listens quietly while Dean washes away the blood and cleans him up. Hopefully the cuts will heal soon enough. They don’t look all that deep, actually, and Cas is pretty awesome in the fixing himself up department. While he sticks a bandage on, Dean explains what happened and Cas just sighs, like this isn’t a new trick – like it’s something he’s gone through before. That doesn’t make Dean any less unhappy to hear Cas confirm it.

_(It’s alright, I understand. That wasn’t my first nightmare. I have at least one every few weeks for the last several seasons.)_

It takes a hell of a lot of Dean’s courage to look Cas in the eye and he has to use the kin-connection to ask the question, or else the words might never have made it out of his mouth. _(You started having them after we split up?)_

He hates the nod and the sick twist of regret that fills him. Dean knows nightmares, he’s had his share of them, and he probably can’t be blamed for all of Cas’s since he went through hell with Lilith. Knowing that doesn’t make him hate himself any less. The moment those thoughts crawl into his head, Cas is there and smoothing them away. Dean doesn’t smile until Cas shares the idea that nightmares won’t be so bad waking up next to him.

And, yeah, there’s no way he’s going to deny that.


	50. There and Back Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 49.**

“Then let me tell you something you don’t know.” He grins and leans forward, bumping his forehead against Cas’s and holding his eyes. “You’re going to go down there and tell the colony and the council everything – about me, about us. You’re going to convince them to give me a chance and they’re going to talk about it and decide what’s best for the colony.”

_(I already knew that.)_

He’s being a smartass and Dean retaliates, tugging at the ruffled fan at his hip. “I’m not done.” His next words get wrapped around all that burning heat that makes his chest go tight whenever he looks at Cas. “And all of that is going to be done in the next three days.”

 _(Why three days?)_ Cas’s confusion doesn’t do anything to lessen that searing warmth he answers with and Dean wants to sink into it. He wants to find some way to make it tangible so he can hold it in his hands and never let it go.

Dean takes a deep breath and slides his hands from Cas’s hips to his back and over the spines and webbing of his dorsal fins. “If you’re not home seventy-two hours from now, then I’m going to come right back to this spot and drop anchor. I’m going to play our song nonstop until someone comes to stop me and it damn well better be you.” He licks his lips and swallows around the hard lump building at the base of his throat, forcing a smile. “I waited three years to get you back, what’s three more days?”

Cas stares at him, eyes wide before he’s pulling Dean in with arms around his shoulders. He kisses him again and again, filling the kin-connection with every ounce of that warmth he’s holding himself. Dean’s in no hurry to let go any time soon and he’s happy to lean back against the wall and let Cas go to town on his mouth, teeth catching, tongue sweeping. These are going to be what carries him through the next few days and Dean’s more than okay with that.

It takes him a while to get up the courage to lift Cas up and carry him to the back of the boat. Cas keeps curling tighter around him with every step and he presses his face into his neck. He doesn’t want to let go any more than Dean does and it’s killing him that he’s going to have to. It’s almost automatic to step out of his sandals when he goes over the short wall separating the swim-deck from the rest of the boat and he keeps right on going. If Cas is unhappy then a surefire way of cheering him up is swimming together. Sure enough, Cas is glowing inside and out within minutes, chasing Dean and being chased in turn until the sun sinks a little closer to the horizon.

Dean still doesn’t want to let go and he holds Cas’s face between his hands, kissing him while he sits on the swim-deck with his feet in the water. It’s only been a week since he got Cas back and it’s killing him – a dark, sick burn in his stomach – to let him go again. What if he doesn’t come back? Dean’s not sure he could stand it. Hell, he might try and make the dive himself, hunting around on the bottom of the ocean until he finds Cas and drags him back home.

His home isn’t in the trench with the other fin-kin anymore. It’s with Dean in the house he built especially for Cas. Even if they don’t say it, they both know it.

He tries dragging his heels, delaying how long it takes him to get the belt with Cas’s weapons hanging from it. Cas must know what he’s thinking, what he wants to ask. It’s pressing at the back of his tongue, bitter and stinging like he’s going on the verge of throwing up. There’s a hint of a smile on Cas’s lips and it’s in his eyes when he looks up at him to take the belt. Dean catches his wrist and he holds on. Letting Cas slip through his fingers again is terrifying and no, fuck no, he can’t do it. He _can’t_.

 _(Three days.)_ It’s a reminder, a promise, and it makes Dean feel slightly better that Cas says it.

“Yeah.” He nods and lets Cas’s wrist go slowly. Dean nearly chokes on his next words. They’re the right thing to say, but he hates them. He hates that he can’t be as greedy and selfish as he feels. “If they give you the choice and it’s better for them that you stay, you pick your family and find some way to let me know, okay? But if they’re not going to give you that – if they make the decision for you and you’re not back in three days. They’ll have to deal with me.”

That actually gets a laugh out of Cas. It’s short, sweet and he pushes himself up out of the water for one last kiss. The kiss is just as short and then Cas is slipping back under. A little bit of panic starts to creep into him and Dean grips the edge of the deck, watching Cas twist to start diving.

_(I’ll come home soon.)_

There’s no way that doesn’t make him happy and Dean would smile if he didn’t also feel super sick. He’s pretty sure he saw in an episode of CSI that smiling suppresses the gag reflex. Either way, he just doesn’t feel like forcing it and he’d rather watch Cas’s glow get brighter the deeper he dives. He’d rather sit here and pump the kin-connection full of as much of that heat in his chest as he can. If this might be the last time he sees Cas, he wants him to damn well make sure that he knows how he feels for him. This is _not_ going to be like the last time.

Dean doesn’t move from the edge of the deck until Cas finally lets go of the kin-connection. He feels heavy and stupid and alone as he turns the key and warms up the engine, flicking the switch to raise the anchor. He doesn’t even have that nagging feeling to get drunk. Right now he just wants to stay here and wait for Cas, but he knows he can’t. He needs to go home, find something to distract himself, and wait. Cas will keep his promise.

He doesn’t eat that night, doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep. For a few hours he manages to distract himself with a video chat, telling Sam and Jess everything that happened since they left. They only leave when it gets too late for them to stay up any longer. Dean wanders around the house for a bit, even tries focusing on something in his work shop. That doesn’t work. Keeping his hands busy isn’t the same as keeping his brain working and he can’t stop _thinking,_ can’t stop _worrying_. He needs something to get his mind off everything else.

Picking up his notebook and sitting down on the couch with a DVD playing is probably the best thing for him right now. Thinking about the plot of his next book, of how to work around it so it doesn’t sound like a fantastical autobiography, keeps him busy. Sure, he’s still thinking of Cas, but he’s not worrying about the future. He’s working out the kinks of the past. He’s cutting it up into puzzle pieces and trying to piece it together into something a little less obviously _him_.

Dean passes out on the couch sometime around when the sun comes up and dreams of a deep dark, bright eyes, and watery kisses. When he wakes up in the late afternoon, he feels better but the worry comes back with a vengeance while he’s in the shower. The only thing he has to eat that day, while he paces back and forth on the deck, is a sandwich. It’s all he can stomach and even then he barely manages to force himself to finish it.

He stays out on the deck, watching the waters and staring at the cove walls until the sun sets. Everything gets thrown into shadows and Dean wishes there’d be a flash of blue light under the waves. It’s only been a day. There are two more to go before he should start getting really worried, but it’s not like he can help it. He’s worked hard as hell for the last few years to get Cas back and now it’s up to a bunch of people who don’t even know him to decide whether or not they’ll be _allowed_ to. It’s like some fucked up version of Romeo and Juliet.

Since he’s the one standing on a balcony, does that make him Juliet? Dean huffs the closest thing to being a laugh right now and heads back inside. He gets maybe a few lines written before a pressure builds in his temples and breaks into a fucking tidal wave of heat and his name. It surprises him so hard Dean actually falls off the couch in his scramble to get up. Clothes be damned, he’s out the door and over the railing before he has enough time to think. All he’s got going through his head is _CasCasCasCas_ and he doesn’t care about anything else. Cas is right there as soon as Dean gets his head above the waves, glowing in the water and they’re both grinning like idiots.

Dean reaches forhim, grabbing an arm and pulling Cas close. _(You’re back!)_

Cas just wraps his arms around his waist and opens to the hard, happy kisses Dean can’t stop pressing to his mouth. He tastes like ocean and Dean’s so used to it he doesn’t care. It’s how Cas tastes and he fucking loves it. The last thing he’s expecting is for Cas to actually push him away a bit and Dean does his best to stamp down on a sharp spike of _ohfucknoplease_ that tries to find a home in his belly. He shouldn’t jump to conclusions before Cas has even said anything.

_(I didn’t come back alone.)_

Wait, what? Cas tilts his head, gesturing back behind him. Dean shifts his attention and holy shit. There’s two other glows in the water. How the hell didn’t he notice them before? Orange and yellow – different from Cas’s blue. There are eyes watching him over the water and Dean is trying really hard not to have a heart attack. The last time he was in the water with another fin-kin and Cas, they apparently wanted to kill him. Cas wouldn’t be so relaxed if these ones had the same notion, but Dean still doesn’t have a damn clue about social etiquette for fin-kin.  

Red hair, orange pattern – that’s gotta be Anna, Cas’s sister. The other one is blond, yellow pattern, short hair – that narrows it down to his brother Balthazar. Great, so he’s meeting the family. This is going to be _so_ much _fun_.

 _(What do I do?)_ He looks at Cas, silently begging for some kind of guidance. And then it hits him. Ariel over there is lacking Deisney’s censoring shell bra. _(Dude, your sister is_ naked _.)_ It’s not like Dean has a problem with boobs – far from it, actually. But she’s Cas’s _sister_. He can’t really ogle her with Cas right here – not that he would, but it’s really hard not to notice boobs when they’re _right there_.

Cas actually laughs and that looks like it freaks his siblings out a little. _(Dean, this is Anna and Balthazar. They’ve come to make sure that we return tomorrow morning.)_

“Hi.” It’s automatic and he waves at them for the two seconds it takes for what Cas said to actually click. _(Wait, run that by me again. What’s happening tomorrow morning?)_

 _(Michael and the council want to meet you tomorrow. They want to make the kin-connection with you and see for themselves if we can trust you.)_ Cas glances back at his siblings before looking back at Dean and his lips press into a thin line. _(They’ll only make their decision after they get to talk to you.)_

Great. No pressure then. Looks like Anna and Balthazar here are going to be his trail run. If Dean manages to win them over he might just have the council in the bag.


	51. Bitten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 50.**

Impulse. Dean has always been a victim to impulse. Sometimes it doesn’t turn out so great, and sometimes it turns out really fucking awesome. This isn’t only kind of one of those moments of impulsivity. Ever since Cas brought up the biting thing again, Dean’s been thinking about it – when, where, etcetera and so on. The whole _impulsive_ thing is right when he’s running his tongue over the lines of blue under Cas’s ribs and Cas rubs his thumb over the little white scars on Dean’s shoulder.

The first time Cas bit him was an accident and Dean really didn’t think much of it then. Of course it hurt like a bitch, but he’s had worse pain and he’s been bitten enough things with sharp teeth that it doesn’t bother him so much. Seriously, fucking _cats_. It’s like they _know_ you’re allergic to them and they hate you for it. Like it’s _his_ fault or something.

It’s that gentle touch, like Cas is caressing the little mark, that reminds Dean just how much he wants this – wants Cas, wants _everything_. And he’ll be damned if he’s going to let Cas go if the answer tomorrow is ‘no’ without Cas knowing that he caught Dean hook, line and sinker. Shoving Cas’s claim on him, not to mention his willingness to have it, in the faces of the council is just a happy little bonus. It might help them understand that wanting Cas isn’t one of Dean’s _impulses_. He’s spent three fucking years waiting, and wanting, and hoping, and how here he is and he just wants _something_ to prove that this mattered to him.

“Wait right here.” He ignores the pulse of confusion in the kin-connection, running to the bathroom and not even bothering with the light. He wets a cloth in the sink while fumbling in a drawer for the first-aid kit. He’ll need it for after.

Cas is watching him with that little frown between his eyebrows, and his head-fins flare out when Dean comes back into the room. He gets brighter with his glow and it’s enough for Dean to see by as he pulls out gauze and bandages. _(What are you doing?)_

“We’re doing it now.” Dean organizes everything next to him on the bed in easy reach before he slides into Cas’s lap, straddling his hips. “Either I’ll be getting in the water tomorrow or I’ll be sitting on the back of the boat. Either way, I’m probably not going to be wearing a shirt and I want your council to see _it._ ” If he stops to think about it beyond that, he might lose the little high he’s got going and chicken out. Just because he’s got a high threshold for pain doesn’t mean that he actually likes it.

His dorsal fins fold out with a snap and Cas stares at him, eyes half hidden in shadow. Everything about him is otherworldly and dangerous and fucking _breathtaking_. Just looking at him is making Dean’s and lungs do this funny kind of thing where it feels like he can’t breathe and his heart trips over itself.

_(But you –)_

“I want it now.” He pulls Cas’s arms around his waist. “It’s going to hurt but I’m riding some kind of endorphin high or something right now and I don’t care what happens tomorrow but _I want it_.” Maybe it’ll be some kind of sign to prove that Cas was here again. That Cas came back to him and he wants him, even if the colony won’t let them be together. Dean puts his arms around Cas’s shoulders and leans forward until his chin bumps his shoulder. “C’mon, Cas. You wanted to do it before.”

He kisses the side of Dean’s neck and runs his hands up his back slowly, fingers splaying out over the muscles like he’s going to take his time feeling Dean out before he does anything. _(I still do.)_

It kind of clicks that he hasn’t asked Cas what he thinks about this happening. Dean’s just running on automatic here. He wants it and he’s going for it. But there’re two people here and he didn’t stop to _think_. Shit, that’s always his problem and you’d think he would’ve grown out of it by now or something.

Dean sits back just enough that he can lean his forehead against Cas’s. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have – I should’ve checked with you first. Do _you_ want to do it right now?”

It’s through the kin-connection that he feels more than he sees everything that happens next. Cas’s smile turns into a full on grin that Dean has only ever seen on Bruce from Finding Nemo. A ragged burn of _possession_ sears through the kin-connection and the ruffled fans along Cas’s tail ripple against Dean’s legs. Cas full on shivers and tilts his chin up, giving Dean a kiss that’s at odds with that _mineminemine_ screaming through his head.

He’s not dumb. Dean knows that every kiss over his throat and touch along his spine is Cas’s attempt at distracting him so he won’t tense up before the bite. He’s not dumb, but Cas knows him well enough that the distraction _works_. Especially when Cas teases his fingers tips under the waistband of Dean’s boxers and gently drags his claws over sensitive skin, or when he rolls his tail up to rub between his legs in a delicious grind that has Dean gasping and digging his fingers into Cas’s shoulders.

Cas knows him well enough to know how long he should work him up. He knows how long to play along until Dean’s guard is dropped enough for him to be completely relaxed. He knows exactly when Dean isn’t expecting it and that’s when he bites a whole hell of a lot harder than the first time he did it. Dean makes a strangled little noise of surprise and he squeezes Cas tighter, hard enough to bruise and he knows Cas doesn’t care.

He trembles a little when Cas licks at his shoulder a few times, tonguing at the bite before he wipes It down with the cloth. Dean focuses on not moving and directing Cas through the kin-connection to get it all patched up. Cas is almost overly tender and caring with how he tapes the gauze over it, even going so far as to kiss it when he’s done.

_(Does it hurt?)_

“Yeah, but a few Tylenol and I’ll be fine.” He shrugs, tries not to wince _too_ much, and gets the bottle of pills. He dry swallows them and winces some more with getting the box packed up and moved to the bedside table. He doesn’t remember it hurting this much the last time. Then again, last time he’d literally been minutes away from a damn good orgasm and Cas hadn’t bitten so deep. Plus, he’d been _really_ distracted with Cas coming for the first time. That’s a memory in the hall of fame in his spank bank and he’s visited it – and the video on his hard drive – a lot over the last few years.

Every time he winces, Cas frowns at him and his thumbs rub circles on Dean’s hips when they settle there as he leans back into the pillows. _(We should have saved the bite for after.)_

“After what?” He asks softly, sliding down to lay against him with his weight off his left shoulder and tucking his face against Cas’s neck. There’s something about the feel of the scales lining his gills against his cheek that makes his stomach twist in the best way. Cas’s gills and his neck are kind of a vulnerable part of him and he’s letting Dean get in close. It’s a sign of trust and it’s _awesome_. Now that the bites all taken care of, they can get back to sleep. It’s not like they’re both raring to go anymore.

_(I thought that, with the way you were kissing me, you had realized that I was ready now.)_

It’s like a flip gets switched in Dean’s brain and he goes straight from sleepy to _hello_. He pops up and stares down at Cas. “Wait, wait. Hold on. Are you saying that you were thinking we were going to –”

 _(You would have had to prepare yourself on your own, considering my claws.)_ He drags them lightly up Dean’s back to make his point, and dear sweet monkey Jesus it’s like a straight shot to Dean’s dick. _(All I was waiting for was knowing that you would be here when I returned. I came back and you’re still here. I didn’t think that we were going to do it because of what might happen in the morning, and I didn’t know if I even wanted to because of that – but your kisses changed my mind. Rather quickly, in fact.)_

“That – we can do that.” He swallows thickly and twists for the condoms in the drawer. “We can definitely still do that.” Nothing short of having a heart attack right now is going to stop him from getting to be _that_ close with Cas again. It’s practically their wedding night, after all. 


	52. Invasive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in Chapter 51.**

Cas didn’t want to give up the kin-connection any more than Dean did. He’s holding Dean’s hand crazy tight and all the little signs are there for just how uncomfortable he is right now. Knowing that Cas not only just threatened the hell out of his family and the council, but is kinda really upset that he can’t be in Dean’s head too when the council members are poking around – well, knowing all of that isn’t really helping Dean calm down any.

As it is, he already feels distanced from this. Dean _knows_ he’s worried about what they’re going to do, or how much it’s going to hurt, but he just doesn’t feel it. He’s had his fair share of pain caused by the kin-connection, and most of that was from Cas when he was freaking out back on the boats. It’s probably a good thing that Dean didn’t remind him about that. The last thing he needs right now is to get Cas all grumpy in front of the council. If they don’t look like they’re happy together, the council might not give them the decision that they _really_ want.

The ruffled fans along Cas’s tail are rustling against the deck where they’re not covered with the blanket. Dean squeezes his hand and leans in close. “Don’t worry, Cas. It’s going to be okay. I’ll be fine. Everything will be fine.”

He’s not really sure if Cas understands him or not, but his fans stop fluttering and he sighs, leaning into Dean as much as he’s leaning into him. Cas looks at him with wide eyes that don’t do a thing to hide just how worried he is. Dean nods to show he’s ready and Cas’s lips press into a thin line before he glances back down at the water.

Gabriel is the first to step up to the plate. He swims in circles a few times before coming to a stop and floating just under the waves. Dean tries really hard not to compare him to a dog circling its bed before laying down. If Gabe’s about to push his way into his head, it probably wouldn’t be such a great thing if that’s the first thought he runs into.

The pressure builds slowly in Dean’s temples, like Gabriel is feeling along the edges of his mind before he actually makes the kin-connection. As soon as it slips into place, Dean sucks in a breath. Where Cas’s mind feels familiar and safe and full of all that _emotion_ , Gabriel is the exact opposite. He’s a whirlwind of thought, but it’s stripped of emotion. He’s quick and precise, and all Dean can do is close his eyes and ride through it as Gabriel reaches into his head and starts pulling up memories one right after the other.

Cas is making some kind of noise at his shoulder, curious and soft and Dean can’t pay him any kind of attention. It’s really fucking hard to think of anything else when every memory he has of his time with Cas – and he means _every_ memory – is dragged out. Gabriel sifts through those pretty fast, hunting down every feeling Dean has associated to those memories.

It’s while he’s picking those thoughts clean that Dean gets the only emotions Gabriel shares with him. The first is joy. For whatever reason, Gabriel is almost stupidly happy to be going through Dean’s memories about Cas – but only the good ones. Any of the bad memories about all the shit that Cas went through are picked up and discarded without even an ounce of feeling from him. Maybe he’s hiding everything again, maybe he really doesn’t care. Either way, Dean’s kind of surprised that he’s _not_ surprised when Gabriel talks in his head.

 _(That’s no good. You just cost me ten sweetsnails.)_ He lets Dean feel his annoyance – the second and last emotion he shares – before the emotions seal off. The memory he’d been looking at was the first time he’d made Cas come.

Gabriel leaves those alone and goes straight for the deepest, darkest part of Dean’s mind. Everything that haunts him gets unlocked and thrown out into the open and Dean tries not to clamp down on everything. Gabriel makes himself at home in those memories and examines each one slowly. Every guilty thought and bad thing Dean’s ever done gets sorted through like Gabriel was organizing a box of postcards or something.

Dean spends the whole thing breathing deep and trying to keep calm because that right there is all the stuff he beats himself up over. Failing Sam, failing dad, failing Cas, all the times he stole shit as a kid. The scamming, the cheating, the lying. All the rules that were ignored, the laws broken, the pot smoked, all the underage drinking that turned into of age alcoholism. Point in fact, there are a ton of things Dean is _really_ not proud of and Gabriel is flicking the memories of them with the same care Dean gives to changing channels.

When he’s done, Gabriel cuts out of Dean’s head without so much as a goodbye. It’s doesn’t really feel like that took more than a few minutes and it wasn’t so bad. Dean relaxes against Cas’s side and Cas makes that curious coo sound again. He lifts his head and gives him an easy smile.

“That wasn’t so bad.” It doesn’t matter that Cas might not understand him. Just talking to him feels good. “Did you know your brother can be kind of an asshole? He went straight for the memories about _us_ first and he was stupidly happy about that. Were they really betting on us?”

His answer is a confused frown as Cas tilts his head and keeps staring at him. Dean huffs a laugh and kisses Cas’s shoulder over the blanket. “Don’t worry about it. I’m ready for the next one.”

Cas’s head-fins flick a little under the blanket over his head and he perks up just a little. Yeah, he totally understood that one. Sure enough, Gabriel dives away to come up next to Anna and Balthazar while the chubbiest fin-kin Dean’s seen so far takes his place. Metatron kind of scruffy looking, but that could just be the waves distorting his face. It’s hard to tell, really. Dean corrects his thoughts to _definitely_ scruffy when he tilts his face out of the water.

Despite Cas’s kickass threat about ripping apart anyone who hurts him, Metatron tears into Dean’s head. If Gabriel had been a whirlwind, Metatron is a typhoon. Cas hisses sharply at his shoulder and Dean barely notices it because wow, he’s having flashbacks to the first time Cas was panicking when they had the kin-connection. But this is _worse_. This is Metatron doing it on purpose.

 _(I can stop, if you want.)_ He offers like he’s trying to sound compassionate and failing. _(You could end up crippled if I keep going. Give up on Castiel, and I’ll stop.)_

Dean’s grits his teeth and takes a deep breath, trying to force himself to relax. This is a fucking _test_ and he’ll be damned if he screws it up right from the start. _(Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. Just do what you’re supposed to do.)_

Metatron drops the assault a few notches, but it still hurts. Every touch of his mind is like sandpaper against Dean’s as he does his own sifting through memories, feelings, intentions and everything that makes him who he is. The longer it goes on, the less it hurts, but Dean’s head still feels like it’s being split open. He’s going to be left raw and hurting after this.

Cas is growling beside him, shifting like he’s getting ready to drop the blanket and dive. Dean twists around to wrap his arm over his chest. “No, Cas, don’t. It’s fine. Just wait.”

He snarls and his dorsal fins spread out, pulling the blanket off his head. A moment later they fold again and all the piss and vinegar goes out of him. Cas ducks his head and stares down at their hands. Dean figures that someone – probably Michael – said something to him. He pulls the blanket back up over Cas’s head and tells himself that his hand isn’t shaking.

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” He tries for a small smile when Cas glances up at him, all concern and worry and everything Dean hates seeing on him. “Just wait.”

The pain drops a whole hell of a lot when Metatron stumbles over all of Dean’s memories about the books and movies he’s seen in his life. His head still aches from everything before, but Dean isn’t going to question why he’s being let off the hook now. Might as well enjoy it while he can. But the pain doesn’t come back. Metatron is totally absorbed in Dean’s memories right up until he skips out just as suddenly as Gabriel did.

With that strain off his mind, Dean sags against Cas and smiles at him weakly. “That was a hoot.” Cas wraps an arm around his shoulder and makes soft little noises at him, kissing his temple and running his hand through his hair. It feels all sorts of awesome and Dean closes his eyes, sinking into that feeling. “Can Mike wait a little bit before he gives it a go? Shit – do you even understand that? Probably not. IT’s too many words. Fuck – can Michael – wait – please?”

Thankfully, Cas nods and for a little while, Dean just vegetates next to him. It’s nice to relax in the sun with Cas beside him and his feet in the water. He’s too relaxed to even care when something brushes against the bottom of his foot. If it was something bad, Cas would’ve freaked by now. What surprises him is when Cas tilts his face up for a kiss. It’s soft, and sweet, but Dean still hums in surprise and opens his eyes to a bright smile crinkling the corners of Cas’s eyes.

“Just the pick-me-up I needed.” Dean grins back and sure as shit he does feel better for it. He gestures out at the water and Cas tracks the movement with his eyes. “I’m ready.”

Michael’s down deeper, probably talking with Raphael from the looks of it. Cas kind of shrugs when he doesn’t come up right away and Dean takes that to mean he’ll be a moment. Which means he’s got the opportunity to go take a piss. When he comes back out to the swim-deck and Cas, Dean brings a cup too. Cas may be in the shade of the blanket, but he’s still out of the water and Dean doesn’t want him to dry out. While he dumps the water everywhere he can reach Cas makes little humming noises and he closes his eyes like it’s the best feeling in the world.

Dean doesn’t even notice that Michael is up in front of them until the kin-connection builds and breaks into his head in a heartbeat. It’s so unexpected that he actually drops the cup and Cas grabs it before it bounces overboard.

 _(Hello, Dean.)_ Michael’s thoughts have that kind of quality to them that you get from people who aren’t in the habit of having their words questioned. It’s kind of scary as fuck.

 _(Hi.)_ It kind of hurts to hold the kin-connection after Metatron’s abuse, but Michael isn’t doing anything more than sitting on the edge of his mind and casually flicking through surface thoughts and memories. Dean kind of figures he should maybe be a little more courteous to the guy who’s going to be the one who has final decision in whether or not this whole thing is going to happen. And courteous, in Dean’s head, means being polite and saying thank you.

_(Thanks for giving me a chance.)_

Michael stares at him steadily over the water. _(Castiel has shared his memories with us. We know of the friend you lost in saving him, and what you put at risk to help him. We know what you’ve done to find him again. You deserve at least this much from us – and you deserve our thanks for bringing him back to us safely.)_

_(He wasn’t as safe as I would’ve liked him to be.)_

_(Safety is a comfort we don’t often have – as fin-kin, and warriors alike.)_ If there was emotion attached to Michael’s thoughts that would maybe sound wistful. _(Now – I know what Castiel thinks of you, though he’s tried to give his reports as neutrally as he can. I want to see the kind of person you are for myself. From actions alone, you clearly care for Castiel. Would this carry over to the colony?)_

Dean frowns and closes his eyes. It’s easier to think without the sun reflecting off the water. _(I’m not going to love each and every finny one of you down there. Not like how I feel for Cas. But if any of you are up here and at my place, I’d take care of you the same way I’m always gonna take care of Cas. If I catch wind of anything that would threaten you guys, I’d fight to keep you safe and secret.)_

That seems to be the answer Michael wanted. He doesn’t really ask much more beyond that besides a few questions here and there about the things he finds in Dean’s head. Questions about human life on land and the things they have that could put the colony at risk. Michael digs deeper than the others did. He goes past thoughts and memories and slides through all of Dean’s _feelings_. It’s like he’s sticking his hand way down deep in Dean’s chest and running his fingers through him.

This one is way more invasive than the other two were.

By the time it’s over and Michael withdraws to the edge of his mind again, Dean feels like he’s just finished running the New York marathon. He’s sweating and shaking slightly and his breathing isn’t all that steady. Cas has his tail wrapped around his hips and Dean’s not exactly sure when he moved, but it’s nice to slump against his chest with a relieved sigh.

 _(You’ve done well. I can’t guarantee a favourable answer, but you haven’t hurt your chances.)_ Michael lets Dean feel how pleased he is. There’s just a brief flash of it in kin-connection before it’s gone. He’s quiet for a minute. _(You cannot tell Castiel anything that we did.)_

_(Got it.)_

Michael pulls out of Dean’s head and the silence is terrifying. Dean breathes and leans more into Cas, not caring what’s going on around him. He kind of just wants to rest now. Take a good long nap with Cas curled up nice and cool beside him. As nice as that is, it’s probably not going to happen. The chances of Cas getting to stay up here with him while the council has their meeting aren’t all that great and Dean doesn’t even know if Cas is going to be able to stick around long enough to make the kin-connection.

That thought ends up being beyond wrong when the kin-connection builds slowly. Dean can’t help flinching at the little flare of pain in his temples. He gets a feel of who it is before they start drawing away again and Dean focuses hard to grab the ribbons of the kin-connection and pull at them hard. Everything feels _normal_ again when Cas is sitting pretty on the edge of his mind.

 _(That’s better.)_ He sighs again as all that heat suffuses his brain.

Cas’s touch in his head is gentle like the sweep of his fingers along Dean’s arms and shoulders, tracing his back and cheek and touching everywhere. _(Are you alright?)_

 _(A little worn out, I think.)_ Dean shrugs and tilts his head into the fingers in his hair. Fuck that feels good when Cas drags his claws over his scalp. _(I don’t want to do that again anytime soon. It’s better when it’s just you.)_ It’s familiar and comfortable and anyone else just feels _wrong_.

He can feel Cas’s smile against his temple when he kisses it. _(We have an hour to ourselves before Michael wants me to join the colony again in the deep. After that, he said you can return home and they’ll figure out how they’ll let you know their decision after it’s made.)_

Thank the almighty glow cloud, Dean gets to have his downtime with Cas. It’s might only be an hour, but it’s still a sweet sixty minutes of whatever the hell they end up doing. There’s nothing he’s going to object to and if he can prolong letting Cas go again, then he’ll take it.

Because – and he tries _really_ hard not to think about this as he gets up – this might be the last time he gets to be with Cas.


	53. Significant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place between chapter 51 and the Epilogue.**

Cas is, in all senses of the word, exhausted. Dean can feel it like a thick blanket in the kin-connection, resting heavy over Cas’s thoughts. All he’s getting right now is a jumble of happy and satisfied thoughts - _missedyouloveyoudeandeandeanmissedyou._ That thought-blanket probably weighs as much as Cas does, still flopped over Dean’s chest and trying to even out his breathing again.

It had been an anxious day for them both. This was the first time that Cas had his rotation duties since the council gave their seal of approval on their – well, their _bonding_. He’s been gone a week and it hasn’t been an easy one. Dean had spent most of it writing and going to town to get all the things he didn’t want to leave for while Cas was here. The rest of his time had been spent pacing and hoping to hell that Cas actually came back – specifically, that nothing bad had happened to him.

On Cas’s side of things, apparently he’d been worried sick that Dean wouldn’t be here when he got back. Which is why Dean made absolutely sure to spend the whole damn day either floating out in the cove on the floaty-ring or sitting under an umbrella in a lawn chair on the dock with his laptop. He wanted to be _right there_ when Cas swam in.

He makes a mental note that maybe next time they should wait until they actually to the bedroom to have sex instead of basically stumbling to the living room floor the moment they made it through the door. Cas is way easier to carry when he’s not a half-asleep pile of skin and scales, his tail curled loosely around one of Dean’s legs. Apparently his burst of energy from seeing Dean waiting for him was enough for him to get _really_ affectionate and if Dean’s memory is anywhere near right, he’s probably got about twelve new hickeys to prove it.

It’s not like they’d _intended_ to get a dirty grind going on the living room floor. But Cas kept kissing and touching and more kissing and he’d just been so fucking _happy_. Hell, it’s a miracle that Dean managed to make it up the stairs with Cas’s tail twisting and curling all around him and his hands going everywhere like he had to make sure by touch that Dean was still there. And when Cas touches him all over _while_ he’s kissing him – well, Dean can hardly be faulted for getting turned on.

“Come on, Cas.” Dean murmurs, tugging lightly at his dorsal fins. “Don’t fall asleep on me, dude.”

 _(Then you should look into not being so comfortable.)_ Cas curls in tighter and rubs his cheek against Dean’s shoulder. It’s one of the things Cas does that makes him think he’s gotta be part cat somewhere in there.

“I’ll get right on that. But first, I’d really like to clean up.” He runs a hand up into Cas’s hair, thumb stroking along the top spine of his head-fins – because touching him is still as addictive as it ever was. “I spent half the day in the water and now I’m gritty _and_ sticky. If you stay awake, we’ll take a bath together.” That’s always something Cas really enjoys doing.

Cas only hums and squeezes him tighter. He’s basically radiating all sorts of happy vibes and the low hum turns into a deep purr. Dean can literally feel it rumbling against the side of his chest. Obviously Cas is a lost cause and it’s up to Dean to make sure that they actually get off the floor sometime today.

With some effort and absolutely no help on Cas’s part, Dean manages to sit up while Cas absolutely refuses to let go and Dean has to deal with him clinging to his shoulders and wrapping his tail around his legs. That’s seriously impeding the attempts to get his feet under him so he can try lifting Cas too when he stands up. And all his grunting and shoving and trying is just getting _amusement_ pulsing through that thick blanket of content laying over the kin-connection.

“Stop being a dick and help out.” He grunts, flicking at Cas through their link just so he knows that he’s only slightly annoyed by this. Dean is one hundred percent aware that Cas is fucking useless for at least an hour after coming – add on top of that swimming non-stop for more than a few hours and he’s got one hell of a tuckered out fin-kin on his hands. That doesn’t mean Dean isn’t going to at least _complain_ a little bit.

_(I’d rather not.)_

“I _will_ dump your ass in the tub and then we’ll see how you like that.”

 _(You’ll be joining me eventually. I fail to see the downside.)_ Oh great, now there’s a whole truck load of _smug_ flowing into his head.

“And if I don’t?” Dean asks, shoulder open the door to the bathroom. “What if I take a shower instead?”

Cas lifts his head and levels Dean with a flat look that just screams ‘as if’. He’s getting a lot better at using human facial expression – especially after they watched at least three movies a day for the few weeks before Cas had to go back to the colony. But yeah, they’re both well aware that neither one of them is going to let the other out of arm’s reach for the rest of today. They’ve had a whole week apart and now Dean wants to hear all about it.

Of course the kin-connection makes it so they don’t _have_ to be in the same room to do that, but he’s positive that he’s never going to get tired of actually _looking_ at Cas. There’s nothing not interesting about him and Dean could spend hours tracking the pattern on his tail and not get bored. He could spend days worshipping every inch of his skin and scales and start over again and again and again.

He puts Cas down in the tub gently and Cas reaches out to turn on the taps, pulling the tab for the plug too. Dean strips down as fast as he can, wanting to get in the tub before the water gets too high. It’s easier to know when to turn it off if they’re both in the tub at the same time. Except Cas is being a dick. He’s refusing to sit forward so Dean can sit behind him like he always does. Instead, he folds his tail up to his chest and gestures for Dean to sit on the other half of the tub.

“Fine, fine. I can take a hint.” Dean drops a cloth on his head as he climbs in. “You can clean your own dorsal fins.”

Amusement flickers through the kin-connection and Cas smiles at him while he turns off the water. He flops his tail over Dean’s legs and curves the lower half up his chest to hook the end over his shoulder. Dean rearranges how they’re sitting slightly so his feet are wedged on either side of Cas’s hips so he’s backwards straddling Cas’s tail. They’re both basically ignoring the extra open space to Dean’s left in the triangle shaped tub.

“Got enough room, Cas?” Dean layers everything in sarcasm, leaning back and watching him pour soap onto the cloth, rubbing it together to get the suds going.

Cas shrugs and holds out the cloth. _(I’m tired.)_

Dean raises an eyebrow but doesn’t make a move to take it. “And what do you want me to do about it?”

 _(Clean me.)_ He shakes the cloth a bit until Dean takes it and then it’s his turn to lean back. Cas slides down in the tub until he can rest the back of his head on the edge and he closes his eyes, fins spreading and folding slowly while he starts breathing slow.

“I can’t.” Everything he could clean is on the other side of the tub and Cas more or less has Dean pinned in place. “You’re too far away.”

His tail flexes and the ruffled fans flutter a little. _(My tail is right there.)_

Dean’s thoughts grind to a stop. Every instance where Cas has stopped him from helping him wipe down his scales runs through his head. Every time Cas has told him that the only time he should let anyone clean is scales is if he’s too sick or injured to do it, or if it’s his _mate_. Cas isn’t sick right now, and he’s sure as hell not injured. Holy _fuck_.

 _(Now you’ve got it.)_ Cas laughs, tilting his chin to his chest and watching Dean through his lashes. He’s got a little smile going that makes something behind Dean’s ribs flutter. _(If you want to.)_

Well he sure as shit isn’t going to be saying _no_ right now. Cas is practically straight up calling him his mate and it makes Dean’s shoulder twitch where the scar is. And that – that makes him _really_ happy. This is just as permanent for Cas as it is for Dean and he’s got his own bite scars to prove it. It doesn’t look quite as pretty as Dean’s but by all fin-kin standards, they’re totally married, aren’t they?

_(We are.)_

Wow, Dean really needs to start hiding at least _some_ of his thoughts. He gives Cas a small, warm smile and rubs a hand up his tail, following it with the cloth. Another purr starts rumbling in Cas’s chest and he tilts his head back again, letting out a little sigh as he relaxes. It’s right then that Dean decides tonight he’s going online, they’re going to size Cas’s finger and order themselves a couple of matching rings.


	54. Goodbye My Old Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place between chapter 51 and the Epilogue.**

Cas is the one who answers the skype call on the laptop in the kitchen. Dean’s elbow deep in ground beef and breadcrumbs with his own special blend of seasoning, so he’s really not able to do it. He’s got the easy job of cutting up the potatoes to make their French fries.

“Hi Cas!” Jess sounds excited, her voice a little static-y through the speakers. “Where’s Dean at?”

“Hello Jess. Dean is cooking.” He answers and Dean glances over his shoulder to see that he’s turned the laptop around. He waves before getting back to hand mixing all the ingredients. Cas is still getting the hang of English, but he’s catching on pretty quick – especially since he started asking Dean to use more English in the kin-connection too. “You’re not home?”

Jess laughs. “No, I’m at work. Hiding in the bathroom actually.”

“Why?”

“We got the results back. I had to steal them from the returns folder.”

Dean goes straight for the sink and washes his hands in record time, drying them on his shirt as he joins Cas at the table. “You’re going to destroy them after, right?”

“Of course.” She glares at him and Dean tries not to laugh at the mental image of her glaring at her phone while sitting on the toilet in a bathroom stall. “I’m going to rip it up, burn it, and flush the remains after I pee on it.”

Cas wrinkles his nose. “T. M. I.”

“Bonus points for using that in the right context. You’re getting extra fries tonight.” Dean grins at him and Cas’s head-fins flare out happily. He turns back to the screen to find Jess looking off to the right, probably at the papers. “Well, what does it say?”

“It says that neither of you are allergic to any of the absolutely nasty ass bodily fluids that you guys forked over. You can now go be gross together all you want.”

Dean is wholly unprepared for the frikken _tidal wave_ of glee that spills through the kin-connection. Cas’s ruffled fans are going crazy against the chair and Dean doesn’t think he’s seen him this happy since the day he came back from shopping with a ring for him. Jess sticks around long enough to wish them both a happy evening of gay interspecies sex before she ends the call. He lets Cas pull him in for one excited kiss before he has to pull away.

“ _After_ supper, Cas.” He manages and okay, _one_ more kiss. And that turns into a third, and a forth, and Cas’s hands are doing that thing they do where one goes up the back of Dean’s shirt and the other dips into his shorts. Man, either Cas _really_ doesn’t like condoms, or he’s _really_ happy about those extra French fries he’s going to be getting. Either way, Dean is so getting laid tonight.

It takes all of Dean’s will power to pull away and ignore the unhappy grumbling from the table when he goes back to making hamburger patties. Cas keeps whipping little thoughts at him that are either hot to snake down Dean’s spine and find their way to his dick, or they just make him laugh. All the frustration and desire flickers along the ribbons connecting their head and Dean finds it too amusing for his own good. He’s definitely going to get retribution for that later. Especially when he makes it a point to stay well out of Cas’s reach while he moves around the kitchen, baking the fries and stepping out onto the deck to grill the hamburgers.

“Don’t glare at me like that, Cas. You know it’s going to happen later, just be patient.” He puts a plate down in front of him, extra fries included.

 _(I have been patient for_ months _, Dean.)_ Cas picks up a fry and chews it a little more viciously than needed. _(I’ve hated the condoms from day one. Now that we can have sex without them, I don’t understand why we’re not taking advantage of that.)_

“Like we really need an excuse to have sex.” Dean laughs and looks up from putting a completely healthy and not at all excessive amount of pickles on his hamburger. “We can’t just drop what we were doing to bone, Cas. I know you’re excited and you’ve been waiting for this for a while, but –”

 _(I know.)_ He huffs and slides a little lower in his chair. _(I just want to be close to you. I want to come in you like they do in the videos you’ve shown me.)_

He nearly chokes on the bites of his burger, switching to using the kin-connection while he tries to breathe. _(I – yeah, okay. You can still do that, Cas. Just later. Trust me, you’re not the only one excited about this, okay?)_ Cream pies may not be his most favourite kind of pie, but he can at least let Cas try it.

Cas huffs again, but this time it’s a laugh and his next fry is chewed around a slanted smile. _(You’re just excited to know we’re having sex tonight. You couldn’t care less about the condoms.)_

 _(True.)_ He winks and Cas laughs again.

Of course lightening Cas’s mood does nothing to stop him from continuing to put all sorts of little thoughts into Dean’s head with the sole intention of working him up. It’s doing a damn good job of it too. Two can play at this game and Dean gives as good as he gets. This just ends up with Cas squirming in his chair, trying to hold off a hard on while Dean’s getting really uncomfortable in his shorts. They both know what the other likes and being able to shove an image into the kin-connection is a lot more effective than any dirty whispers Dean’s had in pretty much ever.

Dean blames Cas for why the dishes get dumped in the sink instead of being rinsed and put in the dishwasher. He also blames him for why the leftovers don’t make it to the fridge and for why he bangs his elbow on the door frame on their way into the bedroom. If Cas had legs, Dean’s pretty sure they wouldn’t even have made it to the bed. Of course the floor is still a perfectly viable option as he is – and God knows they’ve done it more than once on the floor – but Cas has a preference for the bed and Dean doesn’t mind the insane amount of pillows either.

He’s stripped down in record time, even with Cas being a pain and curling his tail all around his legs. Cas knows exactly what he’s doing too, laughing and reaching for Dean as he worms his way up the bed. It’s a fumbling game of hands pawing, groping and caressing before Dean manages to stop kissing Cas long enough to get the lube out of the drawer. He’s pulled back sharply into the middle of the bed and Cas pushes him down on his back, mouth fixed on his collarbone.

Cas doesn’t stay there for long. He kisses and licks his way down Dean’s chest to his stomach, multitasking in getting the bottle open and coating his fingers liberally. Dean spreads his legs a little bit wider to make room for him and bites his lip at the first press of a cool finger. The bottle ends up leaning against his hip so Cas can use his other hand to jack him nice and slow, eyes fixed on the little beads of precome gathering on the head of Dean’s dick. He knows exactly what Cas is going to do, but it doesn’t stop his breathing from stuttering slightly when Cas leans down to lick at it.

“Shit –” Dean hisses a breath between his teeth when Cas swallows him down, tongue twisting and flicking and _tasting_. That’s what this is all about for Cas. He wants to taste everything he hasn’t been allowed to. Which kind of makes Dean wonder if Cas is going to blow him til he comes and fuck him after, or – well, there’s a whole hell of a lot of ‘or’s for that.

His fingers are quick and efficient, getting Dean prepped as fast as his body adjusts. It still takes forever and Dean is dangerously close to coming by the time Cas is four fingers deep. He hasn’t taken his mouth of Dean’s dick since he started and Dean wants to tell him to stop but at the same time he never wants him to. Cas never really enjoys giving blowjobs, but he usually does his best and whines a little about how sore it makes his jaw after, but this is different – this is Cas _wanting_ to do it and Dean’ll be damned before he tells him to stop.

So when Cas actually does pull off him with a pop and licks his lips, Dean doesn’t bother hiding his little whine of protest. Cas just grins at him, all sharp teeth and amusement. He rubs the end of his finger against Dean’s prostate a few times, just to tease him before he pulls his fingers out and wipes them clean on the sheets. Fuck, those are going to have to be changed after this and Dean’s not sure he’s going to have the mental or physical acuity to do it.

Cas’s scales slip over the sheets as he curls his tail under him, sitting back on it. He’s fully unsheathed and Dean rolls his hips in anticipation. This is going to be awesome and they both know it. Dean smothers a laugh under his hand when Cas hisses at the cold lube on his dick, and it earns him a glare. Cas hates being laughed at and he always gets Dean back for it. _Always_. This time he chooses to grab Dean behind the knees and nearly fold him in half.

Dean gets one more swear out before Cas pushes in. His little flare of panic at the idea that Cas’ll go too fast gets brushed aside in the kin-connection. Cas lets go of his legs one at a time and leans over Dean to kiss him. He can’t taste himself on Cas’s tongue but he groans against his mouth as he slides in a little more, going agonizingly slow with the kind of self control Dean wishes he had.

 _(I’m not going to hurt you, Dean.)_ Cas fills the kin-connection with heat and strokes his hands down Dean’s sides as he sits back again. He’s got that kind of awestruck look on his face again, like he had the first time they had sex. _(I like this much better without the condom.)_

Yeah, he does too. There isn’t much difference that he can feel, but Cas is lighting up the kin-connection with all sorts of different things – pleasure, happiness, wonder. And it’s all swirling together with that heat he never stops pouring straight into Dean’s chest. The only time Cas ever stops telling him he loves him is when they have to let the kin-connection go. Dean hates those days when Cas is back at the colony. There’s nothing quite like knowing _exactly_ how your partner feels for you.

Thinking starts getting hard when Dean is used to it enough for Cas to really start moving. The kin-connection gets crowded with so many feelings and thoughts, all of Cas’s comparisons and notes and a thundering _feels so good_ above it all that Dean doesn’t really have time to think. He barely even remembers to stroke himself. All he can do is lay back and let Cas do his thing while the fire burns from his belly to all the points. Everything feels like it’s drawing tighter and tighter in on itself.

Shit, he really _was_ close.

Cas makes a strangled groan against his collarbone when Dean comes over his fingers and the kin-connection fills with _tighttightsotightDeanDeanDeanDean_. It’s always the same mantra and Cas hips always stutter to a stop, hand going to Dean’s stomach to drag through the mess he made. Dean cracks his eyes open to watch Cas lick his hand clean and then he lifts Dean’s fingers to his mouth and does the same. If he could do it without pulling out, the bastard would probably lick his belly clean too.

 _(After.)_ He leans over again to kiss Dean, answering the shared thought. This time he tastes it and Dean isn’t sure if he wants to moan or make a face at it. Cas only laughs against his mouth and slides his hands down the back of Dean’s thighs. _(I’m not finished yet.)_


	55. Without

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This takes place in the Epilogue.**

The moment Cas wrapped his hands around Dean’s wrists and pinned them to the mattress, Dean knew exactly what he was doing. Today’s a special day and it’s been long enough since the last time Cas tried making him come without being touched that Dean can still put two and two together even with his knees hiked up around Cas’s chest and his dick in his ass. The few hours of foreplay and the orgasm denial kind of tipped him off too. Cas only pins his arms down when he wants to punish Dean for something or if he wants to do _this_ and Dean sure as hell hasn’t done anything worthy of punishment recently – at least nothing that he can remember.

Too bad it’s a special day – which means it’s a _busy_ day and they don’t have time for Cas to keep fucking him until one of many things happens. Usually Cas either comes before he can get Dean to come, or Dean gets too sensitive and sore and it stops being enjoyable. Sometimes Dean gets annoyed enough with the blue balls that he convinces Cas to give up. Today Cas is definitely going for the gold, his hips snapping against Dean’s enough to make him feels like fire is pulsing through his veins instead of blood.

“Cas.” Dean grunts at a particularly good thrust that sends lightning up his spine.

“Yes, Dean?” Oh fuck, his _voice_. Cas knows exactly what his voice does to Dean. And now is definitely not the time for Cas to be showing off how good he’s getting with English.

“Would you _hurry up_ already? We’ve got an hour and a half before they’re gonna be at the docks.” And he’s got shit to do to get everything ready.

Cas rolls his hips into a dirty grind that’s gonna drive Dean wild if he keeps it up. He hums against Dean’s throat, mouthing at his pulse. “No.” But despite saying that, Cas picks up the pace just enough for the fire to spread from Dean’s veins to the his bones. Christ, Cas might actually pull it off this time.

 _(If you want us to finish soon-)_ He starts as he pumps the kin-connection full of heat and kisses his way to Dean’s ear, nipping lightly at it. “– then you should come.”

“Son of a _bitch._ ” Dean groans and tilts his head back, squeezing his legs tight around Cas’s waist. “I _would_ if you would just let me – if you would _stop teasing_ and _touch me_.”

“No.”

“Fuck – Cas.” He twists his hips, trying to rub against Cas’s belly and get at least _some_ kind of relief. “This isn’t – would you just – _goddammit Cas_.” He’s going to kill him for this.

“No.” Cas sits back on the curl of his tail to take away the possibility of friction and wiggles part of his tail under Dean’s hips so he can keep rocking into him.

The bastard even pulls Dean’s hands down to pin them beside his fucking hips. But Cas doesn’t hold them there for long, instead gripping Dean’s hips and lifting them just a little. Cas growls when Dean’s hands twitch and a pulse of warning echoes through the kin-connection. Jesus Christ, he’s serious about this and Dean is going to fucking _die_. He can barely breathe, barely move – balancing on the knife edge of pleasure and pain. But he wants to come and he wanted to come _hours_ ago. Cas knows this and he’s working hard for it, sure, but Dean just might kick the bucket before he gets it.

When Cas starts rolling him over, Dean groans. He doesn’t want to move, he wants to _come_. But hell yes, being on his belly means the mattress is under him, and that means _friction._ Or it _would_ mean that, if Cas wasn’t lifting his hips up enough that he can’t do that. Yeah, Dean is most definitely going to kill him after this. Or maybe not. When Cas pushes back in, Dean almost cries from how good it feels.

Lightning and fire and thunder starts roaring through him, pushing all sorts of sounds out of Dean’s throat. He muffles them with a pillow, biting down on it and struggling to breathe. He’s close – so _close_ and Cas is getting touchy-feely. Those are the big guns. Cas knows damn well that Dean’s final buttons are tender words and his hands curling over his own. God, he’s even mouthing at Dean’s shoulder, kissing at his bite mark with the kind of reverence only Cas has.

Dean nearly pulls a muscle in his neck to turn his head and kiss Cas before he can open his mouth and say anything that’s going to make his chest feel like it’s going to explode. He can only hold that for so long before he has to bury his face back in the pillows. His head feels like it’s full of a lightning storm of Cas’s feelings for him and it’s burning him – drowning him – _closesoclose._ There’s no way Dean can’t give back as good as he’s getting and he keeps nothing of his ownfeelings from Cas either.

He knows what’s coming the moment Cas’s lips brush his ear. That burning feeling all through him is pulling tight, drawing in from all his edges and making his toes curl. Dean’s got a white knuckled grip on the sheets and tries to keep breathing through it.

“I love you, Dean.” Cas murmurs soft and slow against his ear.

His breathing skips and stutters as the kin-connection blazes with the heat that goes with those words and all that feeling settles heavy in his chest. Cas drags his teeth over the shell of his ear and with it comes a whispered list of what Cas loves about him. Christ, he even mentions how Dean fucking _snores_. He gets five points in before Dean whites out, shuddering and gasping out as he comes on the sheets.

Cas groans in surprise against the back of his neck but he doesn’t stop moving. Dean enjoys his orgasm while he can, but it doesn’t take him long to realize exactly what Cas is planning on doing. Oh _hell_ _no_. Of all days, today is _not_ the day for Cas to come inside him. He turns and puts his hand on Cas’s chest, pushing at him. Hell, he even flickers warning into the kin-connection, trying to get him to know that he should pull the fuck out when he comes. He’s not fast enough.

On his list of things that kill his afterglow, being annoyed about cream pies is pretty fucking high on it. Dean groans and drops face first into the pillow, muttering the same sentiment that he shares in the kin-connection. _(You’re an asshole.)_

Cas just hums, slowly pulling out and rolling over onto his side next to him. _(But you love me.)_ And God help him, he does.


	56. Dedications

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would write a whole new thing here, but I'm already crying because this is the last Dean's Drabble so I'm just going to copy/paste my ending "speech" from the last Ootd Chapter before I get any more emotional than I already am. ♥
> 
> All that I really want to say is **thank you**. Thank you to the old readers and the new. To the ones who left OotD for a while and came back. To everyone who stuck with us to the very end. The ones who drew fanart, who made fanmixes, who took the time out of their day to add to this wonderful little findom within a fandom that I never - not once - ever thought would come of this fic.
> 
> OotD has brought so many wonderful people into my life. Because of it, because of you wonderful readers, I actually have confidence in my writing and myself. OotD and its readers, you amazing people, have changed my life for the better and I will never forget this insane year of maintaining weekly updates through thick and thin.
> 
> As some of you may know, I am planning on trying to get OotD published. I will be fixing it up for that over the next little while and until it's ready to be submitted to a publisher or self-published, I will leave it here. This is a rough draft, I suppose. Thank you for reading it and giving me the courage to move forward with one of my life's dreams.
> 
> Just. _Thank you_ for everything. I couldn't have asked or dreamed for more.
> 
> **This takes place in the Epilogue.**

Dean is usually super paranoid about Mary and Paul being in the boat – even if they have lifejackets on. The last thing he wants to do is be ripping along, hitting a wave, and one or both of them bouncing right out of the damn thing. That is the exact reason why he always goes slower than necessary. At least it’s buying him time for Cas’s siblings to arrive. This is going to be the first time that Michael and Lucifer meet Dean’s family and he’s pretty nervous about that too.

Today needs to go perfectly. It’s the four year anniversary from the day he walked into that room on Lilith’s boat and saw his – well – his _husband_. Cas’s nightmares have gotten more and more infrequent as time goes on, but Dean likes making a big show about the _good_ things that happened on that boat – as few and far between as those were. Reminding Cas about the good kind of helps them all forget the bad. Not to mention it’s one hell of a good excuse to throw a party – as small and personal as it is.

“Looks like they beat us.” Jess sounds excited when they paddle the boat out of the tunnel. She’s pointing at the beach where the colourful group of Cas’s siblings are gathered under the tarps just like he figured they’d be. “This is going to be gr– Mary, don’t hang over the edge like that.”

“She’ll be fine.” Dean laughs, looking down to see Cas’s black and blue dorsal fins breaking through the water. The kin-connection slides into place so easily he barely even notices when it’s made anymore. It feels so _natural_. “Cas won’t let anything happen to them.”

Glee flares bright through the kin-connection as Cas reaches out to touch the little hands waving at him. Mary and Paul giggle loudly when he ducks away, splashing them with the tip of his tail. He follows alongside the boat right to the dock before practically begging Dean to go inside and get Gabe’s candy. It’s no surprise that he’s being a brat and Dean only sort of regrets introducing him to it. Things were so much nicer than. And Dean kind of hates him for eating so much of it and never gaining a pound. It must be all that swimming they do.

By the time he, Sam, and Jess come back outside with the coolers full of food and drinks, Cas has Mary and Paul stripped down to their bathing suits. Paul is sitting in Anna’s lap out in the shallow water, tugging at the ruffled fans along the sides of her tail while she’s fighting to get a water wing up his arm. Balthazar is keeping Mary distracted while Cas gets her water wings on too. She’s already dragging Balthazar to the water before Dean manages to put a cooler down.

Cas gives him a bright, happy smile and replays the memories of Mary hugging everyone – including Lucifer and Michael. Dean tells Sam and Jess about it and how Paul was a little chicken shit, sticking close to his Uncle Cas instead of saying ‘hi’. That gets him a punch from Jess. He can’t help laughing when Cas shares with him how amused that makes the in-laws.

Dean spends the rest of the day and most of the evening multi-tasking with the grill and socializing. As great as it is to hang out with family and getting to see two totally different species mixing with each other and actually having a good time, the highlight of Dean’s day is Cas. Every time he laughs, every time he smiles, every time he freaking _radiates_ joy into the kin-connection – it’s the best. It’s like pie for the soul and Dean can’t get enough of it. More than once Dean looks up and catches Cas’s eyes while he’s just watching the group from the water or his sand-chair. Cas fills his head and chest full of heat every single time and all his fins spread happily.

One of his favourite moments of the day is when Cas shares a thought off hand. It’s not even a direct communication. It’s just the background noise of Cas thinking. But it makes Dean crazy happy that Cas wouldn’t change a damn thing about their lives – not even how they ended up here. Cas thinks everything they went through was worth it, and even though Dean didn’t go physically go through half the shit Cas did, he kind of has to agree.

He shows that to him in every action when they return to their bedroom that night. Cas soaks up every gentle kiss and he fills the kin-connection with confusion when Dean doesn’t join him on the bed after he carries him from the bathroom. Dean’s too excited – too _nervous_ – for that right now. Today is more than just an anniversary. Today is the day he shows Cas the exact reason why he’s been hiding his books from him for the last four years.

“Happy anniversary.” He mumbles, shoving the wrapped package into Cas’s hands before climbing behind him on the bed.

Cas settles back against his chest and Dean wraps his arms around his waist, resting his chin on his shoulder so he can watch him open the gift. He turns a little to frown on Dean and Dean knows exactly why – they weren’t really supposed to give gifts for this anniversary. _(But I didn’t get you anything.)_

Dean gestures at the box, refusing to give him an answer until Cas figures it out for himself. A huge pulse of joy flickers brightly through the kin-connection as soon as he sees what’s actually under the wrapping. Cas’s ruffled fans along his tail flutter and he gently drags his fingers over the cover of the first book.

“You’ve been reading the kids their bedtime stories, and you finished the last Harry Potter a few weeks ago.” He presses his cheek to Cas’s gills and watches his hands. “I think you’re ready for them.”

There’s no way to measure the happiness shining through the kin-connection as Cas takes the first book out. Dean groans and presses his forehead to Cas’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean read them _now_.”

Cas just hums and flips the book open, reading every last word in the publishing information. The very next page has the dedication and Dean holds his breath. Everything in the books makes him want to hide from Cas until he’s finished reading them. But those dedications – he wants to see Cas read them. He wants to be here for those at least.

It’s pretty fucking obvious when Cas reads those first words. His whole brain just _stops_. Everything goes super quiet and Cas stares at the words for a few moments before he grabs the other book and goes straight for the dedication in that one too. They’re possibly the absolute sappiest things Dean has _ever_ said for anyone before, but Dean meant them. Every word.

Both books get shoved out of the way when Cas finally does something about it. He twists around in Dean’s lap and throws his arms around his shoulders, tail twisting around his legs. Cas pushes him back into the pillows and he can barely breathe between every desperate, rough kiss. Dean stumbles into returning each touch and kiss, fingers twisting in Cas’s hair as he tries to hold him still.

It’s too hard to think while Cas is filling the kin-connection with heat and happiness and _DeanDeanDean_. There are words mixed in, the dedication playing on repeat through Cas’s thoughts same as Dean is thinking them himself – because for three years, they were his driving force.

**_For Castiel – the love I lost._ **

Those words kept him going for three years. They kept Dean on the move, working as hard as he could for that moment – that world changing moment when he got to see Cas again.

**_For Castiel – the love I found again_ ** **.**

He pulls away from the kisses and steels himself for the words that want to choke him. But this is Cas. Dean can say – can do – anything for him. “And the one I’m never letting go again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be more for this verse! Keep your eyes open on my tumblr and on AO3 for Dean and Cas to come back in the fang-fin!AU and mini!verse. They're going to be whole new stories based around the fin-kin and their societies.


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